


Eunoia

by MalevolentReverie



Category: No Fandom, Original Work
Genre: F/M, Physical Abuse, Psychological Horror, Psychological Torture, Serial Killers, Sexual Abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-14
Updated: 2014-01-23
Packaged: 2018-01-04 15:38:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 32
Words: 77,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1082758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalevolentReverie/pseuds/MalevolentReverie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dr. Pierre Holt is an esteemed astronomer at a community college in Washington; a genius cursed with a brutal psychopathic personality and obsessive tendencies. He is attractive and charming, easily luring and dispatching of women as often as he pleases in the bubbling swamp in his backyard. However, when he meets 19 year old Natalie Taylor, a girl who was convinced she had nothing to offer the world, he will forever turn both of their lives upside down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Tyger

**Author's Note:**

> This is an original fiction I've recently started. I have a really big thing for psychopaths and I may post my more popular series here if I get the time. This story will be quite dark and gory, and it will contain elements of sexual assault and other forms of torture. Proceed with caution.

There are nine pints of blood in the average adult woman.

The hot essence of Hannah dripped in crimson globules from my trembling hands as I considered precisely what percentage of her fluid I had spilt. Nine pints—a reasonable amount for a female of sixteen years with a body mass index in the normal range—I could confidently conclude her heart had seen all nine of those pints when it beat blood to each corner of her small frame.

A quaint family laughed on her flickering television as I twisted the numbers nimbly in my mind. It was always best to begin with the Achilles’ tendon to ensure the woman in question wouldn’t do something silly, like try to escape. My eyes flickered down to her hastily skewered stomach that was still in the process of gurgitation, bubbling with recently expired blood that spilled in long lines across her pink bed sheets to pool upon the tan carpet below.

Nine pints. Achilles’ tendon: sliced. Stomach: sliced. Throat: carefully sliced. My eyes roamed across Hannah’s staring, cold blue eyes to her mouth, still curved into an eternal scream. Ah, blood had even braved its own path to her orifice, trickling along her drying lips to the plush pillow below.

I puckered my lips. Nine pints. I imagined I had spilled two, perhaps three pints on my own clothing in my uncharacteristically messy kill. It was coating my hands like thick, hot gloves, seeping into each available crease of my palms. She had commented on my hands and informed me they were large. I merely smiled and tilted my head in the pleasing way women sought. Submission.

Sweet Hannah was a precocious girl from a southern town she had longed to escape. I had uncovered her during a peaceful trip through the park, where she was dozing behind a bush. Her features appealed to me in the correct fashion: short stature, blue irises, pale flesh, lips that quivered when she spoke. It was far easier to dispose of women society wouldn’t miss. Runaway teenage girls were my favorite indulgence, easy quarry that was rather difficult to find.

I was straddling Hannah’s rapidly cooling body as I pondered her. Slowly, I leaned forward to draw a line of blood from the edge of her hairline to the tip of her nose. It was time for me to begin being festive with my girls. After all, it was nearly Christmas.

“Six and three-quarters pints,” I murmured. “Two and one-quarters pints left for a margin of error.”

I rose from the creaky bed with my hands held high like a surgeon to clean the blood off in the bathroom. It was quite a mess. Mercifully, I had inherited my mother’s precision for detail and would be sure to dry every drop of Hannah’s blood before leaving for my own home. Not a fingerprint would be left. A hair had not fallen from my head. I would never allow myself to commit such a treacherous mistake, even in the throes of passion.

The weak light in the bathroom illuminated my hyper vigilant features. The hours after a kill always left me in a lucid state of utter euphoria. I idly examined my dark hair, mussed terribly from wrestling Hannah to the bed when she noticed the glint of a knife in my belt loop. The weapon was still dug several inches into the weak flesh between her ribs.

Thus, I spent the rest of my evening systematically defacing Hannah’s corpse. I began with the teeth because they were the most gruesome bit—ripping out molars raised large quantities of dead blood. I’d grown more accustomed to the process and had the dexterity of a dentist, removing each clue with a quick flick of the wrist. They were all collected in a Mason jar and would be destroyed.

Each pad of her fingers was thoroughly burned to prevent a matching test, and I cut off her tongue in the event the police department became desperate enough to match it as well. A runaway may be registered in their database. I could not take the risk. The tongue joined the teeth in my jar and I also withdrew my knife in a fluid motion, allowing distended fluid to leak out. Rapid decomposition.

The face required a bit of breaking and more serious burns to disfigure my dear Hannah enough that she would not be properly identified. At the beginning of my career, I had invested time into draining the corpse and dismembering it to scatter the parts, but I had come across a delightful piece of property with a convenient swamp in my backyard. Destroying the body was my paranoia at hand. She would be buried in muck and grime within one week.

Whistling merrily, I rolled Hannah onto a thick, plush blanket to obscure her on my way out. I placed her near the door to begin the long, complicated process of scrubbing away her blood. Some found removing it to be a challenge they abhorred. I was quite fond of scrubbing away each sign of my crime until there was nothing left but a spotless floor and equally clean mattress. I stripped the sheets and bring them along—the maid would roll her eyes and assume I was a greedy guest.

The identifiable remains fit neatly in the blankets I had encased Hannah in. I smoothed her blonde hair away from her face before changing my mind and pushing it closer around her features. I’d never been ignorant enough to select a motel with cameras, but the desk attendants could be pesky.

I gently embraced Hannah as if she was asleep on my way out the door, feigning the concern of a married man for his ill wife. The young man at the front desk, who was flipping through a magazine, though nothing of our disappearance and seemed to smile faintly. Gentle, gentle. The key was to become one of them; to feel as they did. Love crippled them.

On the drive home, I listened to Bach to soothe my boiling excitement. I’d had my fill of her. She was willing to have sex with me, which was a severe disappointment and led to my unfettered psychotic rage. Nine pints of blood and I had split nearly seven. It was truly a night to be remembered.

A series of multicolored lights flashed in my rearview mirror.

My blue eyes shifted lazily to the police officer driving up behind me and my pulse did not quicken. Ah, a routine traffic stop. My wife was slumbering peacefully in the back seat, swaddled in blankets and clutching her own teeth and decaying tongue. Keep quiet, Hannah.

I pulled over politely and kept my hands on the steering wheel as the young officer emerged from his vehicle. He spoke into his radio before approaching and was soon standing at my passenger window, hands on his hips in a dominating manner. I smiled at him and pressed the mechanism to lower my window to allow him to peer inside my dark car.

“Are you aware of how fast you were driving, sir?” he asked.

“No, I’m afraid I wasn’t.” I sighed, squeezing my eyes shut to the right degree to incite sympathy. “My wife isn’t feeling well and I’m only trying to bring her home. I’m terribly sorry, officer.”

The police man glanced in the back seat and flinched. “Sorry about that. Do you want an escort?”

“No, thank you. May I leave now? I apologize for taking up your time.”

How they loved when I stroked their egos. The man smiled and waved me on, permitting me to continue my drive to my quiet home on the edge of the woods. Fool.

The gravel crackled under my sedan’s tires as I pulled into the spot before my garage, where I was not stupid enough to carry out any killings. It was the first place the authorities would look in the event I was captured and that was becoming fainter with each passing day. I’d begun my spree at the age of 18 and had yet to be even vaguely considered ten years later. I was a scientist and perfectionist, a dangerous combination that the police could only wish to capture.

My home was simple: two stories with two bedrooms on the upper floor and one full bathroom with another half bath. It helped add to my unassuming appearance and I had no neighbors for miles around. The placement couldn’t have been better, until I discovered my swamp.

I lifted Hannah from the back seat with ease and threw her over my shoulder, catching the jar of evidence before it fell upon the ground. Crickets sang to one another as I walked silently through my backyard toward the thick forest. A quantifiable part of the population was frightened of two things in conjunction: shadows and the woods, which personified many horror movies.

Nocturnal creatures watched my dark sacrament. I carelessly dumped Hannah’s body into the black water that was teeming with muck and undesirable bacteria waiting for an easy meal. The blanket remained with me—I would look suspicious buying them in bulk. I unscrewed the cap of the jar and poured her identifiable remains into the sludge. She was already sinking into the abyss.

When I was certain I had disposed of every important article, I returned to my home. Leaves crunched underfoot. Snow hadn’t arrived in Washington yet. Perhaps it wouldn’t be a white Christmas.

It was serene living in the wilderness. Though I was close to a large city, Washington State was still vastly covered in untouched forest and other such wilds most people were never privy to. I idly unbuttoned my jacket to reveal my bloodstained clothes. It was a pity. Cleaning the filth from them was far more difficult than scrubbing it from the fibers of a carpet. They would have to be burned or drowned along with Hannah’s body. I could not risk being discovered as others had.

There was one in particular who had become too high-profile and unveiled himself: he was a pontificator, vastly involved in himself and the limelight. I sat in my favorite armchair and withdrew a cigarette from my bloody breast pocket before flicking on the television to watch the latest coverage. Some fool from Europe as well: Russia, if I wasn’t mistaken.

“Nikolai Gunter,” I scoffed. “What a ludicrous name. No wonder he was tossed in the nearest asylum.”

However, my fellow hunter was on the other side of the country, reaping what he had sown years ago. I was the quiet type of predator, preferring to stalk in the shadows and lure with kind words and gentle phrases rather than brute force. When they were trapped, I was free to indulge myself.

I dashed ashes into my tray and remained before the television some time before leaving to take a shower. The floorboards creaked underneath my feet. The home had belonged to an old woman for many years when it was put on the market. I didn’t mind. Whatever facets of my life kept me far from public interest sufficed.

The water did nothing to soothe my gnawing hunger. I gazed impassively at the white wall of my shower as water cascaded down my head, occasionally running into my eyes. My black hair was plastered to my head—I imagined I looked like a destitute puppy. Nonchalantly, I ran my fingers along the ridges of my abdomen and admired my easily attained physique. The structure was common in my family. It allowed my father to drunkenly decapitate my mother.

When I was clean, I stepped from my shower onto a clean towel and used another to dry my body. I deposited both into the appropriate bin and clothed myself in a loose t-shirt and boxers for bed. It was going to be a difficult day at work with my lack of sleep and dissatisfaction. My hunger was nearly impossible to abate. It threatened to consume me alive.

I crept between my grey sheets and stared at the ceiling. It simply wouldn’t do. How on earth would I teach college students astronomy when I was yearning to eviscerate them?


	2. Invictus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS IMPORTANT. So CAPS LOCK.
> 
> All chapters in Pierre's POV will use lines from William Blake's poem "The Tyger".  
> All chapters in Natalie's POV will use lines from William Ernest Henley's "Invictus".
> 
> Both are pretty famous/popular so I hope this doesn't throw people off too much. Those two poems capture Natalie and Pierre quite well.

“Natalie Taylor, will you slow down?!”

A car beeped at me in a long, angry peal as I veered violently to the left to pass them, throwing my best friend against the passenger side door. Amanda screamed dramatically and I quickly straightened out all four wheels of my old SUV when I slid seamlessly into a new lane with faster traffic. The Katy Perry blasting from my speakers was my making me an even worse driver than normal.

“This wouldn’t be a problem if the old people leaving for vacation would get outta my way,” I said loudly over the music.

Amanda furiously pushed her recently dyed black hair away from her face, fuming mad. She wouldn’t talk to me the entire time we were at classes. What a bummer she could be. I winked at her and checked my own reflection in the rearview while casually tailgating another SUV driver. I’d wound my shoulder-length brown hair into an intricate braid to celebrate the last day of classes before vacation.

Traffic was usually at least bearable in Washington but when winter came around everyone and their brother left for Florida. Amanda was one of those people, abandoning me to splash around in the Atlantic with her family while I glared at the unwelcome Pacific.

My parents didn’t have that kind of money: I’d only been able to get into a state-funded college with heaps of financial aid, and even then it wasn’t my cup of tea. I liked to be outside—hiking, kayaking, fishing; whatever I could find to keep myself occupied. Sitting in a stuffy classroom was boring. Amanda wanted nothing more than to study her brains out.

“If you crash this you’re going to have to pick up extra shifts,” Amanda snapped, clutching the support bar near the roof of my old car. “And I know how much you hate working at Luna’s.”

“Oh, it’s just stupid drug store stuff. Put things on shelves, smile at people, get paid.”

“You’re too nonchalant about things. If you get fired, you’re never going to be able to keep this car, and then you won’t be able to go to your precious parties and—”

I banked to the right and Amanda flew into the door again.

We managed to find a parking space on the huge campus and ran to our separate classes. Amanda was a pre-med major well on her way to becoming a doctor. I was taking whatever classes appealed to me, and that gave a lot of flexibility. I’d chosen a really difficult one that I thought wouldn’t be too tough and made a huge error. Astronomy was definitely not easy. Interesting as hell, but damn near impossible to understand if you weren’t a genius.

I ran across campus to the building astronomy was taught in and rushed to my classroom, swinging into my seat as the second bell rang. Community colleges were run like high schools. It was kind of insulting.

Students talked to one another quietly as my professor, an old guy with missing hair, gathered his things and got ready to start the lecture. This was it. All I had to do was suffer through my astronomy final and I would be good to go until spring. I tapped my pen impatiently on my desk.

The professor glanced at me.

“Miss Taylor, the head of the department would like to see you.”

Every set of eyes turned to me. I froze not in embarrassment, but shock. I was used to being the center of attention but I wasn’t used to being called out point-blank.

“Why?” I asked stupidly. “Don’t I have to take the final?”

“Yes, but Mr. Holt has a few questions for you first. Hurry along.”

Some of the people I had befriended snickered at me when I walked past them, mildly terrified. I was doing pisspoor in the class but I didn’t think I was failing. Was I doing so bad the head of the department himself wanted to scream at me? Oh no, mom was gonna kill me if I got kicked out of school. She’d go on and on about how disappointed dad would’ve been and Ralph would stand there and nod.

I walked a bit slower on my way down the hall to the astronomy department. My new sneakers squeaked on the floors but I was too busy worrying to care about that. I didn’t even know who ran the whole place. I fidgeted with my pen, still grasping it like an idiot, and turned into another quiet, short hallway. There was light spilling into the hall from underneath the door. It was awfully dark.

Awkwardness wasn’t really a part of my personality. I was a vivacious person; outgoing and friendly to a fault. Though I didn’t participate in any of my college’s official teams I involved myself in other extracurriculars and tried to be part of the group like everyone else. Blending in was the easiest way to go on a campus with 20,000 plus students.

‘PIERRE HOLT, PH.D’ was emblazoned on the foggy glass of the door. It was a fancy name definitely deserving of an astronomy geek. I wanted to giggle when I thought of who I would be meeting. It was probably some old guy like my professor who played with models of the solar system all day.

The door was already slightly ajar, so I nudged it open with my foot and peered inside the office. It was completely bare, save for a cheesy motivational picture hanging behind the big desk and a computer screen that had been turned off. Huh, Dr. Holt didn’t decorate much. I stepped inside and looked around curiously for any sign of the old guy so I could get our meeting over with.

“Miss Taylor, I presume?”

In retrospect, his voice was his greatest attribute. He still had a hint of an accent from his mother that gave him soothing, methodical tone rather than a harsh American voice. It tingled down my spine and left me feeling very uncomfortable, but at that point I chalked it up to be already being nervous.

Dr. Holt was standing behind me in the doorway with a white mug clasped in one hand and he was idly leaning over it to sip the hot tea. He was fairly tall. I stared at him in shock, having expected an old man, and I thought his eyes widened ever so slightly when he looked back at me. His grasp tightened on the mug and he calmly licked his lips, smiling. Hot _damn_ was he attractive. Black hair and those eyes could’ve been ripping right through me.

Yet his blue eyes looked tired for some reason, and the top button of his blue dress shirt was open. He’d been in a rush getting ready to come to class just like me. My eyes traced the curve of the facial hair down the side of his face that connected in a moustache and soul-patch. It made him look older but younger at the same time. Hot _damn_.

I averted my eyes to a bookshelf that was strangely empty. “Uh, yeah, that’s me.”

“…Ah. I see.”

Dr. Holt stepped inside his office and gestured for me to sit in the chair across from his desk, which I did with all the grace of a one-legged ostrich. He sat elegantly in his own chair and drank from his mug that was still probably boiling hot. I cocked my head slightly. It must’ve hurt pretty bad to do that.

He scratched his collar bone. My eyes were ripped from the ceiling and glued to his lean fingers massing the delicate skin, accentuating his body structure. Goddammit, I was like a cat in heat! I examined my fingernails that I had bitten to the quick a few days ago. It was time to get a manicure done. Mom footed the bill because she hated having a daughter with gross nails.

There were a few clicks of the mouse and taps on the keyboard as Dr. Holt searched for what he needed to discuss with me. My heart was pounding. I was trapped in some tiny office with the head of my favorite subject, which I was also performing terribly in, and he was ignoring me.

When he reached up to hold his chin in his hand it took all my strength to not look. If he caught me staring he’d probably throw me out and fail me completely. What if he had the power to drop me out of school? Mom and Ralph were gonna flip out when I got home and Sophie would remind them that she was the smart one in the family. I hated my little sister. When she got out of high school—

“Natalie, correct?”

I blinked and risked peeking up at Dr. Holt. He was staring at the computer with an eyebrow raised.

“Yeah,” I said.

He clicked a few more times. “Your professor, Mr. Holmes, noticed a strange theme in several of your exams, and even homework. He was a bit surprised and brought them to me for review.”

Too. Much. Pressure.

“I’m sorry!” I blurted, gripping the armrests of the chair. Dr. Holt glanced at me imploringly and I continued, on the verge of tears. “I really do like this space stuff but I’m really bad in school, so I’m sorry my grades are so terrible. I’m only going to make my parents happy.”

Then the office fell into silence. I shrank back in my seat, shaking from my outburst and fiddled desperately with my hands. Oh no, now I looked completely insane. He didn’t care about any of that. I’d learned a year ago when I first started college that professors really didn’t care.

The fan spun overhead and Dr. Holt chuckled slightly, making me look up. He was eyeing me mirthfully, like he found my behavior entertaining instead of unacceptable. I swallowed hard.

“You’re quite good with this… ‘space stuff’,” he said. He turned the computer monitor to face me and one of my old assignments was up for display. “During your brief time with relativity, you accounted for general theory with your own math rather than what Mr. Holmes taught during class.”

“Oh… I’m sorry.”

Dr. Holt frowned. “Sorry? Natalie—” He paused and smiled wider. “May I call you Natalie?”

“Sure, go for it,” I said miserably.

“Natalie it is, then.” He pointed to a sequence of numbers that I vaguely remembered from late October, shaking his head. “This is incredible. I have pored over relativity many days and never considered using this specific equation. You are doing your own unique work and doing it right, but what your professor and I noticed is that your final answer is always utterly wrong. Why is that?”

“I don’t know,” I lied.

It was because I wasn’t the smart one in the family. Sophie was.

Dr. Holt leaned his chin in his palm again, staring at my math. “Such a perfect sequence with a completely incorrect answer. I’ve seen this over the years, though not to this degree. You’re throwing the questions, aren’t you? Do you have a competitive sibling?”

Well, shit. How could he tell so easily?

“I’ve got a little sister in eleventh grade,” I said, suddenly feeling immature. “I never thought about it like that, though. I don’t really think during tests and just do what my brain tells me.”

“It’s time to set petty rivalries aside, Natalie. I’ll be damned if I let this kind of talent slip through the cracks.” He x’d out the screen and turned back to me, blue eyes more alive than they had been when he first walked in. He sipped his tea. “Since this introductory class is a requirement of the astronomy program, I’m graciously offering you a second chance.”

“But… but…”

“Feigning stupidity will get you nowhere. There is no crime to be found in intelligence. If you have an interest in the field and a talent for it, I would very much like to see you succeed.”

We discussed a course of action. I would take astronomy online over winter break to make up for my mistakes and Dr. Holt would proctor the class for me. I sat stiffly in my chair the whole time with my heart beating in my ears. Me? Smart? No one had ever told me that before.

My class was long over by the time we finished talking but I didn’t need to worry about the exam. I would be taking the whole thing over again, anyway. I rose from my chair, still vastly awkward around the incredibly attractive head of the department, and he followed me into the hallway. There weren’t any classrooms around his office. It must’ve gotten pretty lonely.

He leaned on the doorframe. “Your class with me will begin December 20th. I’ll email you the details and we’ll discuss your ideas from there on out.”

“Okay,” I mumbled. “Thanks, Dr. Holt.”

“Please, call me Pierre.”

“…Thanks, Pierre.”

And his blue eyes sparkled when I walked away.


	3. Tyger Tyger burning bright,

The first life I had taken was small, squeaking hamster my mother had purchased for my eighth birthday. I could clearly recall lying awake at night listening to her loud, shrieking argument with my father’s slurred rebuttals, all the while my new pet ran along his wheel. It grated on the hinges. My eyes grew painfully dry as the noises culminated in a cacophony of torment: my father’s belt hissing from the loops, mother sobbing, the hamster’s wheel _squealing_.

Squeal. How I detested that word. Even echoing in my vague and inconsistent thoughts it gyrated violently upon my nerves like a drunken prostitute, inciting my rage. _Squeal_.

_“Squeal like a pig, bitch!”_

Mother squealed and my hamster squealed, but only one was available to me. If only she had been quieter. Neither her or my new pet, Happy, would have had to die. He would have learned tricks and awed my mother in one of her rare lucid states. Perhaps my father would have watched the spectacle and replaced his beer bottle with a can of soda.

The Donator. I infrequently referred to him as a legitimate parent.

I scooped Happy from his cage and he twisted and writhed in my grasp like any other rodent. His sharp teeth sank into my finger and I stood in my quiet bedroom, squeezing the ball of fur in both of my hands with a pleasured tremble. Mother screamed from the hallway, as the Donator rarely escorted her to their bedroom. Our home was small and fragile and the walls were torturously thin.

The hamster ceased movement. I replaced him in his cage and fell into a blissful slumber that night, only to be disturbed by my mother’s fretting over Happy’s death. Tears boiled when I needed them. I hugged her and cried like a small boy would, all the while meeting the Donator’s indifferent blue eyes.

They had both destroyed me, leading to the decay of my humanity. It was a common obsession in my particular species—to select an attribute of a negligent parent that you detested and to eviscerate whatever similar creature crossed your path. Eyes were the most prevalent feature. I would tear them from their sockets and keep them for weeks to reminiscence on my sunny childhood.

Mother received her penance. Her judgment was eternal life through cursed souls, unsuspecting females who wandered too close in their curiosity. The weak, the stupid, the flippant. Prostitutes were frequently on the receiving end of my knife. Teenagers and college students were an even tie for the coveted first place, with their cruelty and foul language and substance abuse. How I hated young people. I’d hated them from the moment I was born. I’d hated them when I was one of them.

A silky plume of cigarette smoke casually spilled from my mouth. I was relaxing in my hotel room’s armchair, basking in the sweaty afterglow of post-coitus. A sitcom played in the background and attracted my hazy eyes away from my hastily unbuttoned jeans. Nudity made sex far too intimate. I preferred to be at least partially clothed and leave my victim exposed.

Chair legs scraped in a muffled sound across the floor as my newest victim tried to free herself. She was bound with duct tape to a kitchen chair and her mouth was shut with copious tape. Seventeen. A recent runaway from a nearby town in search of a boyfriend to free her from her normalcy. Not particularly attractive, but her eyes were the precise shade of blue I sought.

Leah screamed into the tape and I irately glanced at her over my shoulder. I’d taped her eyes open and they were beginning to dry in what I assumed was a very painful way. I took a long drag from my cigarette and her shivering eyes watched me. Her ducts had dried. She could not cry.

“You’re interrupting my favorite program,” I said.

I’d pinned her hair over her head to leave her neck exposed. It would make slicing her throat much easier and prevent blood from crinkling the edges. She had worked so hard to look attractive.

The girl continued to shriek even as her voice grew hoarse. I exhaled smoke in lazy circles, admiring the way they knotted together before vanishing in front of the television screen. It would take some time for her eyes to dry completely and I had a several end-of-term papers to grade. Leah’s teeth would need extracting, her fingerprints would have to be burned, and I had to continue disfiguring her face. I was far too slow that evening, lounging about like a sated lion.

I rose fluidly from my chair to take one last pull from my cigarette. Leah’s eyes trembled in their sockets as I approached her, flicking my ashes on the carpet until the cherry was exposed again.

“You’re interrupting my favorite program,” I repeated. “And now you’ve ruined my cigarette.”

Leah’s eyes rolled back in her head when I pushed the burning end of my cigarette to her cheek, twisting it in slow motions to boil away much of her skin. Her short fingers scratched desperately at the armrests of her chair but she could not react in any other way. It was rather painful. I had several experiences as the extinguisher of a lit cigarette.

However, I had one strongly preferred method of dispatching my prey.

I slid a hand into my back pocket to remove my sheathed kitchen knife, still encrusted with the blood of all the lives it had taken. I staunchly refused to wash it. My mother’s essence still remained and though my compulsion to clean was overwhelming at times, her eternal deaths were far more important.

Smiling, I removed the sheath and set it gently upon the bed. “Unfortunately, I haven’t much time this evening to entertain you any further. My students will be very disappointed if I haven’t corrected their papers on time. I hope you understand, Leah.”

The only negative aspect of stabbing was how messy I became. Quite frequently I found myself covered in blood and staring at the dead corpse, hardly capable of enjoying my favorite part of the kill. The pleasure of steel squelching through yielding flesh; the way their bodies writhed in agony as their blood coursed through my incisions. In a safer world, I would have enjoyed licking the knife afterwards, but the types of women I lured were undoubtedly carrying vicious diseases.

I considered my curse as I tore my knife free of Leah’s collapsed lung. Violence beget violence. Death beget death. As I was raised, I lived.

Across the room, my cell phone rang. I wrapped a tissue around one of my bloody hands to answer the call, leaning the device in the crux of my shoulder while I pried apart Leah’s jaw. The teeth were most important to destroy. Her eyes would have to wait until I had made her body impossible to read.

“Pierre Holt speaking,” I said.

“Hey, Pierre! It’s Olivia.”

The hind molar was particularly stubborn. I grasped Leah’s lower jaw and examined the decayed tooth, weighting whether or not it was worth surgically removing. Cutting gums was gory and time-consuming. The tooth was likely too forgone to be used in dental recognition.

“Wonderful to hear from you,” I replied. I took the girl’s upper and lower jaw to disengage her mandibles so her mouth hung open loosely. Much better. “How is my favorite cousin feeling?”

Olivia laughed. “Well, I just gave birth so I guess as well as I can be. Will you be flying to Paris for Christmas this year? The kids are dying to see you again. They loved their telescopes you gave them last year—I have a hard time getting them to come inside on some nights. My mother and father will be there along with everyone else. There’s going to be a memorial for Aunt Cecilia.”

My mother was an immigrant who had foolishly shacked up with the first man she stumbled across. Her half of the family lived quite well in the City of Lights. Her sister and brother—my aunt and uncle—both had several children, but my cousin Olivia was particularly fond of me. I wasn’t entirely sure why. My European family had welcomed my existence with open arms and frequently encouraged me to leave America behind to live with them in the lap of luxury.

Dismembering women in a large city was far more difficult than drowning their corpses in my personal swamp. I politely refused, citing the Donator’s side of the family as my reason. I had met my paternal grandparents on a single occasion and they reeked of cat urine. I assumed they had died.

I sighed, feigning consternation. “Let me consider it. I have some business to take care of here.”

“Oh, backed up on paperwork?”

Leah’s incisor came free with a ghastly tear. I dropped it daintily into my Mason jar that was presently holding several other teeth and my extinguished cigarette.

“Something like that,” I said.

“You’re such a hard worker! Mom said Aunt Cecilia was the same way you are.”

“Mhm. I’ll talk to you later, Olivia. Have a nice day.”

My cousin bade me farewell and I returned to my task at hand with gusto, ripping free the rest of Leah’s teeth in record time. I sliced her tongue free, tenderly burned the prints from her fingers, and collected all of my evidence in the jar. I left her to wash the blood from my hands and bleached the bowl of the sink to ensure no residue would be left to uncover. My own fingerprints had been burned off long ago.

I cut Leah free of her bonds and wrapped her in a blanket as I had done so many times before to leave her by the door while I cleaned the room. It was a guise I had created several years back and it worked quite well: thus far, it had a 100% success rate. I would leave the hotel in a rush claiming my wife was very ill and absolutely no one would question me. They would only wish us well.

And I knelt upon the floor to scrub the blood from the fibers of the carpet, intently examining each square inch for any forgotten evidence. I vacuumed the room and backtracked my work before stripping the sheets from the bed. I’d not drawn any blood from Leah until she was bound in the chair, which I had cleaned scrupulously with a toothbrush. I was a detective’s worst nightmare—a psychopathic serial killer with a strong comorbidity of obsessive-compulsive disorder. I cleaned until my fingers were raw.

The front desk attendant didn’t glance up from his cell phone as I walked out the door with my ‘wife’ slumbering in my arms, also clutching her remains. Several passerby smiled at my chivalrous gesture and I laid her in the back seat for transport with her face carefully obscured. I did not make mistakes.

Bach played his concerto in my speakers as I drove home through the cold night, lingering on the last few inhalations of a cigarette. The snow would be arriving soon enough. Washington was a stubborn state but she succumbed like all the rest. I flicked my ashes onto the wet pavement as I drove, gazing indifferently ahead. Leah’s body would rest quite directly on top of Hannah’s. How amusing.

A strange sight on the roadside caught my attention. An SUV had its hazard lights on full display and a small woman was standing outside furiously kicking a popped tire. As I passed her, she turned to look at my car flying by through the increasingly heavy rainstorm.

I promptly slammed on my brakes, nearly sending my dear Leah flying out of her seat. I gripped the wheel tightly for several seconds before turning to look out of my rear window where the woman I had suspected was watching my car with intense suspicion, undoubtedly frightened by my sudden stop. Her hair was plastered to her head from the rain and it was quite dark but I could see her eyes.

I smiled at Leah. “Perhaps Miss Taylor would appreciate a ride with us."


	4. Out of the night that covers me,

It had been shaping up to be a good week for once.

Mom and Ralph had been ecstatic when I told them the news about Dr. Holt and how he wanted me to switch to astronomy. I’d expected them to react negatively or tell me to stick with athletics but mom leapt out of her chair in the kitchen and the next thing I knew, I was face-first in her boobs. She made me baked ziti for dinner and called grandma to tell her the good tidings. I couldn’t believe her reaction—Ralph and Sophie were much more subdued and my little sister seemed pissed off.

To celebrate, I decided to go to a party and have just a few drinks. I was an idiot and already a terrible driver, making for a dangerous combination on the way home. It was my intention to sneak inside so mom and Ralph wouldn’t wake up and catch me still buzzed but my SUV had decided to die along the way, leaving me hopelessly stranded and screwed. They’d be able to smell the booze on me.

Of course it had to be raining. I walked around my car a couple of times to angrily kick the tires, stumbling back thanks to my poor motor control. Mom would give me her spiel about underage drinking and Ralph would encourage her like he always did. What if Sophie came along? Goddammit, she was such a pain, smirking at me and sticking out her tongue.

It was then that I noticed my blown tire in the rear and began angrily cursing at it. My tires were so expensive and I didn’t have a jack stand to change it! I’d never hear the end of it.

Lights coming down the road attracted my gaze and I glanced up for a split second to watch a new-ish black sedan fly by going a solid ten miles an hour over the speed limit. I turned to watch the car fly through the rain when the driver suddenly slammed on their brakes, nearly skidding across the road to the guard rail on the other side. I blinked in surprise and stepped back when the car began to reverse toward me, swinging neatly into position in front of mine.

The rain pattered down on my head as a familiar face stepped out of the car. I rubbed my eyes to make sure I wasn’t having a drunken hallucination but Pierre was still standing there clear as day with a condescending smile on his face. He leaned on the door and looked up at the sky.

“Want a ride, Miss Taylor?” he called.

Holy shit. My very attractive and encouraging astronomy professor was standing a few feet away from me, currently being drenched in rain and offering me a ride home. I swayed on my feet and his eyes flickered down to my shoes when I staggered and leaned against my car. Either way, I was going to get screamed at by my parents. There was no victory. It was better to wait it out and call them for a ride.

“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s probably better for me to wait and call my parents in a little while.”

He cocked his head and smirked. “Oh, I see. Out for a bit of fun, hm?”

“Well… well I’m almost sober, so it’s not like I was swerving everywhere!”

“Mhm.” Pierre beckoned me with his lean index finger. “Come along, Natalie. I can’t leave you in the middle of nowhere like this. You can stay at my home until you’re presentable.”

The way he spoke was so formal. It fit him, though: he was supposed to be really intelligent, so I assumed he’d be one of those reserved, fancy types. Even his clothes reinforced this, what with his long black trench coat and dark jeans, paired with black boots. Not a hair was out of place.

I bit my lower lip and turned to examine my car, debating whether or not I should leave it behind. She would be fine if I locked her and came back first thing in the morning. I clicked the electric locking mechanism and hurried through the rain to Pierre’s sleek black car, which upon closer inspection was a high-end Audi. It wasn’t what I expected from a professor at a state-funded school.

While I adjusted myself in the front seat and admired the general grandeur of the car, Pierre hefted something heavy out of the back to put it in the trunk. I thought nothing of it and continued preening to make myself more presentable. Sure he was probably married or at least had a girlfriend but there was nothing wrong with looking good.

The trunk slammed shut and he was beside me in the next moment, shifting the car into first gear to start driving. Of course it was a manual. How else were you supposed to drive an Audi?

“Nice car,” I said stupidly.

The car climbed through the gears with a low growl. “An astute observation. This is a dangerous road for a woman to travel down alone. You should be more careful.”

I fiddled with my fingers. I’d left my phone in the car.

“Yeah, I know.”

“You seem uncomfortable. I can bring you straight home, if you’d like.”

“No, no, I’m fine!” I exclaimed. “I’m just still kind of buzzed so I don’t want to talk too much and stutter like a moron. And this is kind of embarrassing because you’re my professor and everything.”

He laughed and my heart skipped a beat.

“Don’t tell me I look that old.”

“Of course not! I’m only saying that because… because…” I groaned in defeat and slouched in my seat, shaking my head. “This is why I didn’t want to talk.”

“But this is such a scintillating conversation,” Pierre said. He glanced at me while the car began to slow down. “Liquor has a convenient ability to loosen any person’s tongue. It’s more pertinent for me to elicit as much information from you as possible right now rather than wait until the alcohol has ebbed away.”

“I am way too drunk for you to use words like that.”

Pierre only smiled.

Gravel crunched under the Audi’s tires as we crawled along a short driveway toward a tall and foreboding home set against the famous woods of Washington. I pushed myself up in my seat and stared at the moderately-sized house that was layered with cedar shingles that made it look a bit like a beach house. Pierre parked just outside the garage and slipped out of the car. Oh god, he had to be married. His wife would probably flip out when she saw me.

My door opened and a polite hand was extended to me, which I graciously took to pull myself out of the car. I wavered upon standing and nearly collapsed back in the Audi but Pierre deftly caught me with reflexes that I had never seen before. He gently wrapped my arm around the back of his neck to help me walk toward the house and I groggily became aware of how drunk I really was.

It was quiet and dark inside. Pierre flipped a light switch and I was immediately faced with a set of stairs ascending to a dark second floor, along with a comfortably decorated living room. Through the living room, I could see the outline of a kitchen with pots and pans. To my right was another doorway leading to a formal dining room but I couldn’t make out the details.

My astronomy professor, who I had gone from hardly knowing to accepting rides from in the course of a week, carefully set me down on the black couch. The guy was really a big fan of the color black. It fit him, though. Pierre Holt, astronomy genius—bright colors would make him seem geeky.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said, glancing at a watch on his wrist. “I need to deal with the business in my trunk. Feel free to help yourself to a beverage in the kitchen, but try not to vomit.”

Then he was gone in an instant and I was left alone in his quiet, empty home.

I closed my eyes and took deep breaths to hold down my puke, keenly aware that he would not be happy with me if I barfed on his very fancy black couch. A clock ticked by in the kitchen. I was tempted to explore but the alcohol was making it tough to do much of anything. Would I even be able to go home? I didn’t want to impose on Pierre any more than I already had and I didn’t want to make things awkward or step over a boundary.

Dr. Holt was thusfar a very friendly and genuine man. He was kind of weird and reclusive but I’d learned a long time ago that it was kind of the burden a genius carried. If my being in his house complicated that, I would risk my mother’s hellfire to go back where I belonged.

I rolled over on my side and curled into a ball as the alcohol began to recede in painful pulls, leaving behind a headache and sore stomach. God, that was all contingent upon whether or not I could roll myself off the couch and back to his Audi. I hiccupped and covered my mouth as the front door opened, letting in a relieving cold breeze. My nausea recoiled just a bit.

His boots moved casually across the floor until he was standing beside me. I risked a peek to see his head was tilted and both of his blue eyes were studying my face. Did I look that bad?!

“I’m sorry,” I blurted. “I’m sure your wife or girlfriend will be home soon so—”

“I don’t have either of those, but thank you for your tact. You look quite sick, Natalie.”

I tried to prop myself up. “I’m f-fine. We can go now if you w…” My belly jolted abruptly and I desperately grabbed a nearby pillow to hug it, grimacing.

“Don’t fret; I have a second bedroom. Regardless, I wouldn’t make a woman sleep on the couch.”

“No, really, I don’t want to intrude. I can leave in a few minutes, I swear.”

“Mhm.” Pierre looked away from me unwillingly and his cold blue eyes moved to the kitchen. “I’ll bring you a bit of ginger ale and bread to help your stomach. Would you like something different to wear to bed? My clothes will be big on you, but you’ll be more comfortable.” He smiled fondly. “Teenagers and their restrictive blue jeans.”

Due to being rendered utterly speechless, Pierre took my silence as an agreement. He left me gawking at the fake fireplace across the living room that was flickering with a flame. He… he was going to let me wear his clothes to bed?! Since when was that okay? I got a distinct feeling we were crossing a professional boundary and I got an even stronger feeling that I needed to leave.

But my girlishness won me over. One night wouldn’t hurt anything. He was just being helpful to a young person in need, like a father or something. It wasn’t like he had any other intentions—I could tell he wasn’t that type of guy. I settled down comfortably and closed my eyes while I waited for him to return with the stomach-soothing bread and ginger ale. What a nice man.

When I opened my eyes there was a bowl full of cut-up pieces of Italian bread and a wine glass filled with ginger ale. The half-empty bottle of soda was sitting beside it. I yawned and reached for the bread to realize a red blanket had been draped across me while I was sleeping. Had I been out for long? I chewed thoughtfully on a piece of bread to find it wasn’t stale. Nope, only a few minutes.

“I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do if you slip into a coma.”

I looked over the back of the couch to see Pierre standing at the foot of the stairs now wearing a pair of dark grey pajamas and holding something red in his arms. He smiled at me and I laughed at his joke, surprisingly at ease. I should’ve been more wary of him but I figured he was harmless.

Attractive men never really raised alarms. They could do no wrong.

“You must be really impressed with my brains now,” I said, sitting up as he approached.

Pierre sat down at my feet. “No, but the thought processes of young people never cease to amaze me.” He offered me the red object and gestured flippantly at the ceiling. “This is an old article that belonged to my sister when she would stay on weekends. You two are roughly the same size.”

“Thank you,” I said. I hesitated, then: “If you don’t mind my asking, does your family live around here?”

“My mother was from France, and—” He stopped very suddenly. “Well, perhaps that’s a story for another day.”

I leaned forward, hugging the nightgown to my chest. “Really?! That’s so cool!”

“…Yes, I suppose. Are you ready for bed? I’d like to set you up in the spare bedroom before you pass out on the couch again.”

Oops, I must’ve overstepped a boundary that time. I shut my mouth immediately and nodded, hopping to my feet nimbly only to have my stomach protest furiously. Pierre gathered the ginger ale and bread to lead me upstairs and I worried I had seriously affronted him. That was really rude of me.

The bedroom was very plain. The walls were painted a soft shade of brown and the sheets were eggshell white, giving it a hotel vibe. There was a very colorful painting hung on the wall opposite the door and a television resting on an armoire at the other side of the room. Pierre set my snacks on the nightstand beside the bed and pulled back the sheets while I looked around.

“There’s a bathroom right across the hall,” he said. “The other is downstairs, but I doubt you’ll be wandering much tonight.”

I fingered the red gown. “I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m sorry.”

Pierre straightened. His expression was unreadable.

“You apologize quite a bit, Miss Taylor.”

“Yeah, it’s a bad habit.”

“Hardly. Polite women are… quite rare nowadays.” He put his hands on his hips, still a total enigma. “Is there anything else you’ll need? A paper bag to aspirate into?”

I shook my head quickly. “No, I’m fine, thanks. I really appreciate all the help. I can’t think of many people who would outright help a stranger like that.”

“Polite _and_ grateful,” he murmured. “Your parents raised you well. I have no problem helping a fellow astronomer. A mind is a terrible thing to waste, after all. I’d like to see you succeed.”

Pierre wished me a good night and left. I changed into the red nightgown he had given me and was surprised to see just how well it fit. The edges were kind of frayed like it had been worn a lot but I didn’t mind. He was being too generous for me to complain about a damn thing.

Dr. Holt was such a nice guy.


	5. Black as the pit from pole to pole,

The sound of a sitcom woke me the next morning to a pounding headache. I groaned softly, nestling closer to the warm sheets and squeezing my eyes shut. Last night was a painful blur. All I remembered was getting drunk at some party and trying to drive home regardless. My tire popped and I was stranded on the side of the road until a car came up and a guy offered me a ride. It had been raining and I was already soaked to the bone so I gratefully accepted his offer.

I blearily looked at the nightstand to see my snack from the previous night had been replaced with plain toast that wasn’t burned in the least. There was a glass of water beside it, probably to keep my stomach from getting upset again. I rolled over on my side and nibbled the toast carefully to keep from spilling any crumbs on the nice, clean floor. It was rude to leave a mess behind.

After I had eaten what I could I gingerly stepped out of bed into the cold morning to make my way to the bathroom. The sitcom was fairly loud and drowned out the sound of me walking around. I stepped inside the meticulously clean and organized bathroom to see a note taped neatly to the mirror over the sink. I squinted at it, trying to read the graceful script with hazy, unfocused eyes.

_Miss Taylor,_

_Feel free to help yourself to a shower. There are spare toothbrushes in the cabinets. I may not be  
available when you wake._

_-Pierre_

It was a much-appreciated gesture. I locked the bathroom door and slipped out of the nightgown to hop in his shower, feeling very much like a mooch but desperate to be clean. When I was done I opened one of the many toothbrushes in the cabinet and scrubbed the taste of alcohol away. I put the nightgown back on because my clothes were way too wet to wear either way.

I walked quietly down the stairs to investigate the house and was surprised to see Pierre sitting on the couch with one arm slung carelessly across the back. My eyes flickered to the television: _Seinfeld_ didn’t seem like the type of a show a genius would watch. He was fully dressed in black pants and a blue dress shirt like he had some important business meeting to go to. I lingered at the foot of the stairs and watched him, trying to decide what to say.

“Feeling better this morning, Miss Taylor?” he drawled without looking back at me.

“Um… yes, thank you. I’m sorry. This is so embarrassing.”

Pierre sipped a glass of orange juice, riveted on the TV. “No matter. Have you seen this program? It isn’t my favorite, but I suppose it’s better than nothing.”

I hesitantly approached him and stood beside the couch to watch the show for a few seconds. Comedy was my favorite. I loved to laugh so mindless sitcoms were great.

Pierre moved over to allow me to sit beside him and glanced at me from the corner of his eye, only mildly interested in what I was doing. But his gaze suddenly sharpened and he turned his azure eyes to me, examining my wet hair with intense interest. I tugged on the ends of my locks and he took another calm sip from his orange juice before turning his eyes back to the television. Weird.

“I can leave whenever you want,” I said timidly.

“You’re right, you can. I had your car towed and replaced the tire.”

“You… what?!” My eyes widened and my pulse quickened. That was expensive! “Let me pay you back somehow. I work at Luna’s Pharmacy in town and I can probably—”

He waved me off kind of irately. “Don’t insult me, Natalie.”

We watched the show for a while. I would smile and giggle a bit at the proper parts but I noticed Pierre’s expression never changed, remaining harsh and critical the entire time. If he was so deathly serious, what was he doing watching funny TV shows? National Geographic seemed more up his alley.

The show ended. Pierre rose from the couch and fiddled around in the kitchen for a while before reemerging, carrying two glasses of orange juice and a notebook under his arm. He sat beside me again and offered me a glass of OJ, which I drank very slowly to save my poor stomach. He flipped open the notebook to reveal a bunch of numbers and Greek symbols. High-end calculus; oi vei.

I wrung my hands nervously. Normally I was good at making conversation, but Pierre was pretty goddamn intimidating. He was much older than me and clearly five hundred times smart, and he even had my car fixed. How on Earth could I repay him for that?

“What is the equation for Kepler’s 3rd Law?” Pierre asked suddenly.

I didn’t even have to think. “It defines orbital motion. The relationship among mass, period, and distance of separation in au’s. Open parenthesis, ‘MA’ plus ‘MB’ close parenthesis equals ‘a’ cubed divided by ‘p’ squared.”

“Wein’s Law.”

“The maximum peak in angstroms output of radiation from an emitting object to its temperature in Kelvin. The max peak of angstroms equals 2.9 times ten raised to the seventh power divided by ‘T’, or the temperature in Kelvin.”

He smiled slightly. “You sound like a textbook, Natalie. What are the three most important ways an astronomer defines luminosity?”

“The Distance Modulus, Inverse Square Law, and Tully-Fisher Relation. And before you ask me to spit out the equations, I can write them down on paper for you.”

“I would very much like it if you did that for me.”

I’d gone from being uncomfortable and desperate to leave to hastily scribbling down the formulas rotating in my head for Dr. Holt. His sharp eyes watched my hand fly across the paper like he was waiting for me to make a mistake but I never did. I could recite them in my sleep. Hell, I could probably solve the damn things in my sleep. It just… clicked.

Pierre accepted the notebook back when I was done, puckering his lips.

“I see you write the Stephen-Boltzmann Law in its simpler form. Any particular reason?”

“It lets me express stellar properties in term of solar properties.”

“Fair enough. I noticed you hesitated while writing expansion formulas.” He looked up at me, idly chewing the end of the pen. “Hubble’s Law is very important, as is the Doppler Effect. Perhaps we should begin there and I should move you to a more advanced astronomy class.”

I blinked. “Wait, we’re starting _now_?! I’m barely dressed!”

“I’m only giving you a basic quiz, which you’ve passed with flying colors. I intended to instruct the course online but perhaps it would be easier for us to meet in person, considering how close you live. It would be far more constructive to your learning if we could review principles and laws on paper rather than dealing with the inefficiencies of the internet. What do you think?”

My chest felt tighter and tighter the longer Pierre’s indifferent cold eyes studied me. Us? Alone in this house? I didn’t know if our college would allow that sort of thing. It was kind of a relief that there was no woman around to get jealous or ask questions but strange at the same time.

Dr. Holt wasn’t tough on the eyes—not at all—and he was under 30. I wondered why he didn’t even have a girlfriend. Sciencey types could be withdrawn but he seemed polite and very well-spoken. Hell, he gave me ginger ale and orange juice in a crystal wine glass. I could name about ten girls who would be tripping over themselves to get someone like him.

“Are you sure that’s okay?” I asked. “I don’t want either of us to get in trouble.”

“They won’t be giving either of us any trouble.” Pierre tapped the pen to his thin lips, scrutinizing my formulas with a trained eye. “I write the grant requests for each science and math department. They try to allow me to do whatever I please so I keep the cash flowing.”

“Oh,” I faltered.

“Don’t worry, Natalie. My intentions are pure.”

I jerked back like I’d been stung and shook my head furiously, turning red. “I’m not worried about that kind of thing! I know you wouldn’t do something like that.”

He cocked his head. “Or would I?”

It didn’t feel threatening. It was more of an existential prod to get me to consider different possibilities, not an actual suggestion that he would cross that boundary. Regardless, I began to feel very uncomfortable wearing the red nightgown he had given me.

“Well, I guess I can’t know for sure,” I admitted, “but you’re my professor and you work for the college so I assume you wouldn’t. And you don’t seem like that kind of person.”

“Why not? I live alone on the fringes of a city in a large, sparsely decorated home with no animals. I am not and have no intentions of being married. I have a notebook brimming with mathematical scribbles. Why wouldn’t you jump to the conclusion that I am a violently sick man perhaps luring young women to his home such as yourself? Are you positive I’ve actually repaired your car, or was it a trick to lull you into a sense of security? Perhaps there is no car. You could be trapped.”

My spine prickled. That was all definitely true, but probably false. The pretty face I saw sitting a couple of feet away from me didn’t scream “psychopath,” so I trusted my gut feeling.

“You’re not gonna make this very easy, are you?” I asked sourly.

“Of course not. I’m here to, as they say, ‘drive you up the wall.’”

“Terrific.” I stood up, stretching my arms toward the ceiling. “It’s probably about time for me to go home before my mother starts calling the police.”

“Indeed. We will meet Tuesday and Friday evenings from six to nine o’clock. I hope you have a safe trip, Miss Taylor.”

“Yeah… thanks for everything. I’ll pay you back, even if you don’t want me to.”

And once again, Dr. Holt only smiled at me.

My SUV was waiting outside as promised and both my keys and clothes were resting in the passenger seat. I looked over my shoulder at Pierre’s house again, excited and nervous about what was soon to come. We were starting the following week and I got to actually see things instead of having to sit in front of a computer screen the whole time. I started up my car and typed my address in my GPS Ralph had given me last Christmas, then headed home.

Mom was sitting at the kitchen table holding her head when I walked inside. She leapt out of her chair like she had when I told her I was apparently a blooming genius and hugged me for a really long time. Ralph was at work and Sophie had stayed over at a friend’s, so it was just me and mom. I apologized to her a hundred times and explained I had just passed out at Amanda’s house.

Amanda agreed to cover for me but she wasn’t happy that I wouldn’t tell her what really happened. I was still on the fence about everything with Pierre and wanted to keep it a secret for as long as possible. Mom would be awfully suspicious of him and she wouldn’t understand that he wasn’t that type of guy. After I had passed the class and moved on to the spring semester I would tell all of them.

While I was changing into new clothes in my bedroom, my charging cell phone vibrated. I tugged my t-shirt over my head and unlocked the screen, expecting a text from Amanda or my friend Luke, who’s house I had gotten ludicrously drunk at the night before. My stomach flipped.

_Hello, Natalie. This is Dr. Holt. I found your cell phone number in your information logged in the school’s database. Please don’t forget to bring back the nightgown—I wouldn’t want you to have nothing to sleep in the next time I find you stranded on the side of the road. ;)_

Oh. My. God.

The phone trembled in my hands as I stared blankly at Pierre’s text message. He wrote with perfect grammar, and… was he insinuating something? No, I was overthinking it. I typed back a haphazard reply and finished getting dressed, trying to stay calm.

_so sorry! i didn’t even realize it! i’ll bring it back on tuesday._

Amanda picked me up for dinner and started berating me about my poor life choices. I was staring at the next text Pierre had sent me, disbelieving.

_I don’t mind. It looked quite good on you. I’ll see you Tuesday evening._

Well, shit.


	6. In the forests of the night;

_“I’m sorry.”_

_“I’m so sorry, Dr. Holt!”_

_“I’m so, so sorry.”_

My seldom used cell phone was lying on my kitchen table before me, silent and unmoving for the past incalculable hours. I had burned through half a pack of cigarettes in the mean time in a vain attempt to control my overpowering, violent urges. Apologies, apologies. I loved apologies. If Natalie apologized to me once more, I promised my clawing demon he would feast on her that evening.

Yet my new protégée failed to respond. Years of practice in the art of patience had kept me firmly rooted to my seat anticipating at least one more message, but she was silent. I drew harsh, painful pulls from my cigarettes while I waited with both eyes riveted on the phone. Answer. Give me an excuse to eviscerate you, Natalie. I needed a valid reason for destroying a fellow genius. Such people could not be lightly slain like the usual sheep.

My fingers undulated on the table in series of clicks. It had been quite a while since I was last fixated upon a female and my little Natalie was quickly becoming my newest obsession. I was prone to those tendencies: not attached, because I lacked the capacity for such nonsense, but irrevocably _obsessed_.

However, I would be patient as always and keep my wits about me. There were too many factors about Miss Taylor in flux to consider her worthy quite yet. Several weeks of observing her mathematics at work would tell me what I needed to know. If she failed, she would die like the others.

I twisted my neck. She was young. Aggressive advances would frighten her away, even if my instinct screamed the opposite. Her rather submissive personality was a boon that would make keeping her lips sealed much easier. Regardless, Natalie was wary of me, and I was mildly concerned she would spill her secrets to one of her friends. I’d witnessed her paling around with Amanda Parker several times.

Ah, the way she recited Wein’s Law; it was truly music to my ears. Her inflection was short and crisp like a textbook, lacking the typical stutters and stumbles most students suffered. If I wasn’t a violent, unrepentant sadist I may have been able to achieve sexual gratification listening to her idly twist complicated formulas around in her mouth as if they were nothing.

If I was ever to have an equal, it would be Natalie Taylor.

The phone began to ring. I paused in the middle of my tenth cigarette to glance at it and was slightly disappointed to see the name on the screen. My irksome therapist was calling again.

I answered it, dashing my ashes into a tray. “Dr. Pierre Holt speaking.”

“You missed your session again, Mr. Holt. Any particular reason why?”

“Psychoanalyzing me over the phone, Dr. Purlieu?”

“Of course not,” he said, “but inquiring minds like to know. Your sessions are no longer court-ordered but I do like to know you’re doing well, Pierre.”

Both of my parents had died on the same day. The Donator attacked mother in a particularly angry rage and removed her head with an axe. I was sixteen years old at the time, blossoming into a gruesome psychopath, and had done the right thing: bludgeoned him with a frying pan. It had been cited as self-defense and I had avoided prison for the time being with monthly psychiatric visits. Dr. Louis Purlieu oversaw my ‘recovery’ for a very long five years.

Seven more had passed and I continued to visit Dr. Purlieu to keep my appearances clean. I was a cautious killer and kept my record far from derelict. I looked like a model citizen.

I smiled into my cigarette. “I’m quite well, Louis. As a matter of fact, I had a very amiable woman visit my home this evening. It was to discuss astronomical concepts, of course.”

Louis was quiet for several heartbeats. I dearly loved to confuse him.

“Did you?” he asked coolly. “Interesting. I recall you expressing distaste for women.”

“The only facet of a woman I hold any amount of disdain for is her ghastly emotions.” I crushed my cigarette in the tray, growing hungrier by the second. “Their voices are a bit of a bother as well. I’m not sure how married men tolerate that incessant, piercing shriek that is the hallmark of femininity.”

He laughed. “You have such a way with words. I expect a visit tomorrow.”

“Of course. Have a nice evening, Louis.”

The desire to kill was strangling me. I needed a substitute for Natalie—a woman I could torment until my needs were abated for at least one more evening. It would be a slow and torturous process waiting for the opportune moment to pounce, but my obsession had already begun. I could not change course.

Irritated, I dressed well enough to appeal to easily attainable women and left my home to prowl through the city in the darker corners, where I would perhaps stumble upon an unwitting teenager. I massaged my chin impatiently while I drove and my eyes continually flickered to my cell phone resting on the passenger seat. If Natalie was a bit drunk, I could certainly take advantage of her.

I parked on a favorite corner of mine and watched the vagrants stumble about in the shadows. My hunger was peaking. Whatever woman I found would rue the day she was born.

The police would send out decoys on occasion to flush men out such as myself. I had grown adept at selecting them from the others: there was always a certain kind of fear in their eyes because they knew their lives were at risk. Only the deplorable type I sought would lack that glitter of life.

A tall woman in a long, brown trench coat caught my attention. She had brown hair, which I wasn’t particularly fond of, but her blue eyes traveled with interest across the hood of my car. It was too dangerous to emerge and speak with her so I rolled down my passenger window as she approached, glancing carelessly out my own window into the night.

She leaned on the frame. “What’s a nice car like this doing in the bad part of town?”

“Get in if you’d like to find out,” I said.

The Audi did a spectacular job luring them. Most women complied without complaint and this one was no different. Amy slid into the passenger seat, politely handing me my phone in the process, and squinted at me when I began to drive. The only issue with bringing my vehicle was that the prostitutes could band together and brand me as the one responsible for the deaths of their coworkers. If I began to suspect they were considering this, I would abandon the car and walk about instead.

She attempted to begin a conversation along the way and I pointedly ignored her. I had no time for her nonsense meant to lull me into a fantastical realm in which she cared for me. It was their favorite tool—a sure-fire way to earn extra money at the end of the night with an empathetic and caring man.

The hotel clerk was once again observing his cell phone very closely. Amy stood by my side and smiled when I introduced her as my wife, and as usual I offered him cash rather than using a card. He returned to his social media while I escorted Amy up the elevator to room 22B at the end of the hall.

It was the same dilapidated garbage pile as always. I locked the door behind us and removed my jacket, offering the same gesture to Amy. She was surprised by this; they all were. Many men were unaccustomed to frequent visits with prostitutes and forsook basic chivalry, like hanging coats or confidently requesting a room. They didn’t want to feel as dirty as they were.

I could not empathize with people, but I could certainly read them.

“So, what do you want?” Amy asked. She held up her hand that glittered with various rings. “I don’t do anything involving kids or animals, though.”

“Well, that’s quite disappointing. I was dearly hoping to involve a puppy this evening.”

“…No way.”

I tilted my head. I loved to torment them. “Are you sure? I could pay you extra.”

Amy’s mouth pressed into a thin line at the prospect of receiving money in exchange for committing lewd acts with a small animal. I considered it for a brief moment. It would be her last memory. But there wasn’t time for those frivolities. My homicidal urges were intensifying and I was desperate for release.

The most important step was keeping her quiet. I leaned back on my heels to remove duct tape from the bag I had brought along that carried my cleaning supplies and other loose ends. Amy’s eyes narrowed fractionally at the sight of it but she rolled her eyes and consented when I peeled off a thick piece. Several of them would outright refuse. I had to be a bit more… encouraging in those cases.

This one was roughly my age but still relatively inexperienced. She obediently sat on the bed when I approached her and reached out to pull my shirt off. My insides seized uncomfortably and I slapped her hard across the cheek, causing her to reel back in shock. I knelt between her legs on the bed and it creaked beneath the added weight. Amy’s eyes widened when I grasped her jaw tightly.

“Do not touch me,” I hissed.

To ensure she would obey me, I duct taped her wrists together as well. Amy watched me remove her dress to reveal her rather unappealing body underneath. Sex was not the most important aspect of a woman to me—the sexual release was vital, but I had found gratification solely through stabbing on several occasions. My momentary freedom from my urges was contingent upon stabbing.

Another odd quirk of mine was my avoidance of kissing. The exchange of genetic material wasn’t the crux of the problem, but the intimacy repulsed me. I tried to remain aloof throughout the process. I did not attach to my victims in the way many of my kind did. They were cattle to sate my appetite.

Amy shivered underneath me in anticipation as I unbuckled my belt. Her long legs wrapped around my waist when I leaned forward and applied a condom. It was a common misconception that stabbing was a substitute for intercourse—that men like myself were impotent. I was certainly not. I had acquired the same raw, aggressive lust as my Donator before me.

Soon she was lying on her stomach with her face hidden amongst the pillows, panting heavily into the tape and struggling to breathe. My thrusts were fast and deep; the ultimate goal was release, not enjoying each passing second. I grasped her hair to force her head deeper into the sheets to stifle her loud breathing and soon her entire body was wriggling to escape and breathe again. I pulled on her hair until it split from the scalp and she shrieked into the tape.

That _squealing_ sound again. It was enough to drive me mad.

My hand slipped to the back of Amy’s neck to hold her in place. I was on the brink. It was time to finish our night and return home to rest. I reached into my back pocket to remove my knife while she slowly drew herself along my length, trying to entice me to continue. I was her last customer.

I pulled the sheath from the knife with my teeth and dropped it behind us on the bed, wielding the blade in the low light of the motel. I’d been so frenzied I had forgotten to turn on my sitcom. I turned the knife in my grasp, holding it at the best angle to begin the first of many stabs.

Across the room, my cell phone began to ring with a pleasant tune.

Amy stopped completely, quite used to wives calling when husbands were in the midst of fucking her. I kept her firmly pressed to the bed and managed to reach my cell phone on the nightstand as the call ended and went to voicemail. I held it to my ear and returned to thrusting violently into Amy with the knife casually pressing to her hip. She didn’t seem to notice.

_“Hi, Pierre!”_ trilled Natalie on the message. _“Sorry I called so late, but I wanted to let you know I can pay you back. One of my friends owed me so she paid up tonight. I’m really sorry; I know you didn’t want me to but I have to. It’s my parents’ fault.”_ Her voice weakened and became meek. _“I’m really, really sorry, Dr. Holt. Um… anyway, I guess I’ll see you Tuesday. Bye.”_

_“Sorry…”_

_“I’m really sorry.”_

_“I’m really, really sorry.”_

Amy’s hair tangled irrevocably in my fingers as I finished very suddenly, grinding against her with each pulse of completion to the image of Natalie wet and wearing red on my couch. I leaned across her languid body for a moment, panting as my ecstasy receded and the painful longing was left behind. My obsession was intensifying. I would lose control of myself.

I removed the condom and placed it delicately in my Mason jar before turning Amy over to face me. Her body was flushed pink and her eyes bugged when they fell upon the knife in my hand. I held her hips firmly between my knees and raised the blade high.

“Squeal like a pig, bitch.”


	7. I thank whatever gods may be

Amanda was lying across my bed with her long legs swinging carelessly in the air, flipping through a magazine. I lowered the phone from my ear after leaving a message for Dr. Holt and nervously clicked my front screen shut. No big deal. It was pushing midnight, so he was probably asleep. I’d bothered him for almost the whole day and he needed a break from it.

I turned to my best friend, smiling broadly. “So, what’s on the agenda for tonight? We going to a party or something? WalMart run? I could go shopping if you’re up for it.”

Amanda turned the page of her magazine. Her brown hair was spilling over the edge of my bed and she was smacking her gum obnoxiously.

“You’re antsier than usual tonight,” she said. “Something wrong with your professor?”

My eyes roamed to my cell phone that was now sitting on my nightstand. I hadn’t texted Pierre back after his last message because I didn’t know what the hell I was supposed to say. It was just a polite way to the end the conversation so we both weren’t forced into talking about nothing.

“No,” I lied. “Everything’s fine.”

We shared clothes from my closet to get ready for a night out. Mom and Ralph were already fast asleep and Sophie was too busy throwing a hissy fit over the recent revelation of how smart I was. I was so glad I got to shove it in her bratty face that I wasn’t the loser daughter. I was worth something—Pierre assured me of that multiple times, and he even texted me a compliment.

It was kind of exciting. I didn’t know why I was suddenly all aflutter over some guy I had just met but Pierre had me; hook, line, and sinker. I turned in front of the mirror to admire my reflection in the short red dress Amanda had thrown at me while we got ready. He liked red. Was it wrong to send him a picture if I looked decent? I wasn’t going to send anything dirty, but maybe…

No. I needed to get a hold of myself. It was immature and unprofessional to look at him that way and I would make him uncomfortable if he found out. I needed to find someone closer to my age at a party instead of holding out for ‘the one.’ What a load of shit. There was no guy who spelled an endgame. Dating was all about being too choosy and not being able to settle for a person’s flaws. I would be lucky if I could find someone who I could tolerate and would tolerate me in return.

Life wasn’t a fairy tale, after all. People died. People left.

I slipped my cell phone in my front pocket and followed Amanda quietly through the house to the front door, which squeaked when we opened it. She made rude gestures towards it but we managed to slip out without being noticed and hurried to my SUV that had a brand new tire thanks to Pierre.

My face soured while I drove and Amanda chattered about a new guy she had met. I needed to stop thinking about him. It was getting sort of creepy.

Our current party was once again at Luke’s house and the music was so loud I could hear it from the other side of the street. Luke’s parents were usually away on business and they had a lot of money, so he was always hosting get-togethers and whatnot. Everyone was invited and he never turned someone away because of their social status or anything. Luke was a genuinely nice guy, just like—

“Shit!” I hissed as Amanda and I walked to the door.

She turned to raise an eyebrow at me, stunning as ever in a blue dress.

“Are you sure you’re ok?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said, grimacing. “I just can’t control my own stupid thoughts for some reason.”

The door flew open and there was a flash of green before I was hoisted off the ground and throw over Luke’s shoulder, shrieking in surprise. Amanda laughed and slapped my ass as he carried me inside to a very thick group of teenagers who were all dancing in a claustrophobic group. I pounded my fists on Luke’s back until he set me down and was promptly shoved against him.

Luke was tall and lanky with short blonde hair. He had brown eyes that were always happy and bright—it was hard to catch him in a bad mood. He laughed when I scrambled to get away from him and ruffled my hair. I felt my cheeks flush. I’d also had a crush on Luke since elementary school when he gave me his milk for lunch because I’d forgotten money for mine.

He offered me a Heineken. “For you, Nat.”

He was also the only person in the world I allowed to call me “Nat.”

“Luke?! Luke, where are you?!”

And he was also dating the captain of our college’s volleyball team.

I clutched my beer bottle as Miranda came into view, wearing her uniform from whatever game she has recently attended. She was beautiful, of course: she had long, curly blonde hair and the same passionate brown eyes as Luke. She hugged him tightly around the neck and Luke stumbled a bit.

“Hey, baby,” he said, kissing her chastely on the lips. “I thought you were busy tonight?”

“I can always make time for you, sweetie.” Miranda turned slightly to acknowledge me with a nod and a small smile. There was no bad blood between us, but I had a hard time suppressing my jealousy.

“Well Natalie and I are gonna go mingle,” Amanda said quickly. “See you around, Luke. Miranda.”

My best friend grabbed my hand and led me away from them toward the center of the writhing crowd and I morosely nursed my beer. It was pure torture sometimes. I wanted to convince myself he didn’t mean anything to me, and I didn’t want to ruin our friendship but… dammit, I knew I was good for him. He was smart, I was smart. He liked being outside, I liked being outside. He hated turkey, I hated turkey. Why did there always have to be a tall, attractive girl in the way?

Life really wasn’t a fairy tale. There were good parts, like friends and parties and shopping, but sometimes it felt like the bad outweighed the good. I’d followed that ideology since the night I lost my father in a freak accident. He’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Amanda started dancing with me and I gradually drank the memories away until I was laughing and dancing with whoever came my way. Word had spread around campus that Natalie Taylor was a closeted genius and surprisingly, it didn’t kill my blooming social career. More guys were interested when they figured out I was more than an outdoorsy type and I hoped one of them would make me forget about both Luke and Pierre.

I paused in the middle of dancing with a new guy, swaying on my feet. Dammit! Why couldn’t I control myself?! The guy caught me when I almost fell over and I was passed off into another pair of arms that dragged me out of the crowd. I realized I was covered in sweat.

It was Luke. He told me something about lying down and I squinted at him through the strobe lights, trying to read the sentence off his lips. His house was huge. I’d run through it all the time when I was a kid and we played tag together, and I’d sat in his closet when we were ten and he wanted to play doctor. I wished life would slow down. Why did it have to be so damn hard?

My phone started vibrating in my back pocket as I stared at Luke. He watched me struggle to take it out and fumble with the unlock function until I finally managed to swipe the screen.

“Tatalie Naylor speaking,” I slurred.

“Will I be rescuing you from the roadside again tonight, Miss Taylor?”

My mouth ran dry. I really needed to drink some water. Or remember to breathe.

Luke stepped closer when he noticed my expression blanch. “Are you okay, Nat? Who are you talking to? Hang up the phone right now.”

I hastily backed away from my friend and hurried to the bathroom, promptly shutting and locking the door behind me before he could follow. No one could know I was talking to Pierre yet. Right? I didn’t know why, but I knew I had to hide it from all of them.

I slumped against the door and sank to the floor, cradling my phone close to my ear. “Sorry, I just had to get out of the crowd. So I uh… I have money to pay you back now.”

“We’ll address that in a moment. Who was that speaking to you?”

“My friend. It’s no biggie, he’s a good guy. You won’t find me on a roadside or anythin’ tonight, promise.”

“Give me his name,” Pierre said in a menacing way.

“Uh… Luke Higgins. Why do you need it?”

“Cataloguing purposes.” A keyboard clicked in the background, distinct even over the blaring music outside the bathroom. “Shall I come pick you up or wait for your inevitable phone call?”

I scowled. “That was an accident! You’re getting real snarky with me, Dr. Holt.”

“Only because you’ve caught my attention, Miss Naylor.”

My brain took a few lagging seconds to process his disguised joke. I folded my arms and pouted my lower lip, sitting alone in the bathroom and dealing with my swimming vision. I was really, really drunk. In fact, I was drunk enough to risk flirting with the professor I had met a few days ago.

“Must’ve been the nightgown you gave me,” I said.

“More than likely,” Pierre responded without missing a beat. “Speaking of which, I’m missing that article of clothing quite a bit. Perhaps I can bring you home this evening and you can return it to me a few days ahead of time. You would have my sincerest gratitude.”

I couldn’t process the message he’d wound into his words. I rubbed my head, struggling to comprehend as someone banged on the door. Was I even supposed to be talking to him? It was sort of about school but mostly about me sleeping over at his house the night before. Christ, what was I doing? Was the smart girl in me coming out and making me go crazy?

“Nat?” called Luke. “Are you sick?”

“I’m fine!” I said a little too loudly.

“Your friend?” Pierre asked.

It was really loud in the house and my brain was moving slower and slower. I nodded as if he could see me and remembered to make an agreeing noise.

“It’s probably not a good idea for you to come here,” I said. A moment of lucidity had struck me. “Luke goes to the same school and I don’t want anyone getting ideas that we’re… y’know, doing anything against the rules. You know how dumb people can be.”

And before I could hear Pierre’s reply, my phone went dead.

I pulled it away from my ear and groaned in frustration as Luke finally managed to pry open the door and step inside the bathroom. He reached down to help me to my feet and asked me a couple of things: who I was talking to, how I was feeling, whether or not I was ready to pass out. I was kind of annoyed with his sudden protectiveness—he usually let me wander around all night alone.

Amanda was occupied with her mouth glued to some guy’s. She was leaving for Florida in the morning and I would be left behind in cold, miserable Washington. I took another sip of my beer and made my way toward the stairs to find a phone charger lying around. It would be rude to not call Pierre back.

My coordination was getting worse and I managed to trip up the stairs, spilling the rest of my beer on the smooth wood. A familiar laugh behind me chastised my walking while the person helped me up, and I realized it was Luke once again. He was very clingy for some reason. As far as I could tell, things were going great with Miranda so he had no reason to want me as a rebound.

We went up the stairs and past two bedrooms to his room. It was familiar, even in my drunken state: the different posters on the blue walls, the soft carpet underneath my hands when I unceremoniously collapsed. I dragged myself across the floor until I couldn’t move any further and lay there with my phone in my grasp. Shit. Was Dr. Holt going to be irritated when I saw him Tuesday?

I groggily registered a hand beside my head. I was face-down on the floor.

“Miranda had to go,” Luke said, words garbling together. “We’re all alone, Natty.”

Then I felt hands fumbling with my pants and I groaned, trying to push myself up. Luke was heavy. He weighed me down and I could feel his hot breath in my hair that smelled like beer. Shit. Out of all the parties I had gone to, it was the first time a guy had tried anything when I was drunk.

“Wasshup with you?” I muttered.

“Nothin’. You wanna do it?”

It was actually fairly uncommon for me to puke, but I attributed my vomiting episode to being nervous about Pierre and even more nervous about Luke. The first mouthful spilled out in a hiccup and Luke immediately hoisted me off the floor to bring me to the bathroom, barely getting me there in time so I could finish in the toilet. I’d just kept drinking and drinking and drinking… of course it was going to catch up with me soon enough.

Luke sat beside me and held my hair. “Raincheck, then.”


	8. For my unconquerable soul.

_“I’m really sorry about what happened at the party. I should’ve paid more attention but… well, you know how it is when I drink a lot. Sometimes I get grabby. Please don’t tell Miranda.”_

It was Tuesday morning and a few days had passed since my incident with Luke and the congruent incident with Dr. Holt. I was slumped over the kitchen table morosely scrolling through my texts in hopes of seeing an apology from Luke or an admittance of love but he had been pointedly ignoring me since he called me Saturday afternoon. I had been shuffling around the house in my sweats with my hair strung in a greasy, sloppy ponytail. Love hurt.

Pierre had yet to call or text me back as well. I didn’t know if I was still supposed to go to his house to start my second attempt at astronomy but I assumed the deal was off. I’d probably made him realize what a complete fuck-up I was and he was running for the hills before I got him fired. Typical. It felt like every guy was trying to avoid me, no thanks to my party girl reputation.

“I haven’t even had sex!” I shouted into the table.

The house was silent in response. No one was home to ask why I was moping around; not that they would bother, anyway. I slowly beat my forehead against the smooth table and cursed my family for having things to occupy themselves with. Mom was at a scrapbooking party with her friend Felicia, dad was at work as always, and my bratty little sister was hanging out with a bratty little boy.

I dramatically rose from the table and trudged upstairs to my bedroom to pick out clothes for the day. Amanda was gone for an entire month in sunny Florida, Luke wouldn’t talk to me, and Pierre had given up on my hidden genius. Scowling, I threw a pair of jeans and a v-neck on my bed. I needed to go outside ice fishing or get a group of people to go skiing with. There was plenty of stuff to do in the winter, even if it was miserably cold. I was an athlete, dammit!

My shower helped brighten my mood a little and I risked texting Luke to apologize for what happened, even though it wasn’t my fault. He’d brought me to his bedroom and tried initiating things. I was completely wasted and thanks to my vomiting, nothing happened. He should’ve been praising me.

I collapsed in bed in my clean outfit with my freshly washed and dried hair pulled back into a lazy ponytail. My room had too much pink in it. I needed to get back to my roots and start acting like a guy again because it felt like being a girl only brought pain. Irritated, I rolled over on my stomach to punch my pillow a few times and glared at my silent cell phone.

“Please don’t tell Miranda,” I said in snarky tone. “My precious Miranda can’t know because she’s such a goddamn princess. Christ, if I wasn’t such a good person—”

My phone vibrated once, alerting me of a new text message. I blinked at it, surprise Luke had replied so quickly, and hastily scooped it up to see what he said. Please say everything’s the same, please say nothing’s change, please invite me over so I don’t die of boredom.

_Hello, Miss Taylor. I expect your arrival at 6 o’clock sharp._

Surprisingly, it was even better than a reply from Luke. My heart started pounding and I quickly typed back an affirmative reply before rolling out of bed, suddenly energized. At least one person was still available to me and didn’t pray for my untimely death.

Luna’s called and asked me to pick up a shift. I agreed because it would keep me busy while I waited to go over to my professor’s very elaborate home in the woods. Excited, I changed into my khakis and red polo for work and hurried out the door to my patiently waiting SUV. I was a bit of a slacker with work and tried to avoid it as much as possible, but I saved whatever money I made very carefully.

The drug store I worked at was a fairly peaceful place and we didn’t get a ton of business. I smiled at a few of our regular customers and walked behind the front counter where I worked as a general cashier. My manager, Lena, was busy browsing our sales goals and only waved vaguely to me when I walked past her to hang up my coat in the back room. She was pushing 30 and awfully pretty, with long blonde hair that she usually kept in a braid. Oddly enough, she wasn’t married.

I frowned to myself while I adjusted my hair in the reflection of the door. Why was I suddenly so concerned with everyone’s marital status? I wasn’t even 20 yet and nowhere near ready for that kind of commitment, but lately I’d been pegging everyone for their life choices. How judgmental.

“You’re spirited today,” Lena said with a small smile. “Have a good night last night?”

“Not really, I’m just so excited to be working that I can hardly contain myself.”

“So sarcastic! C’mon, I need you to start working on this new planogram for me. You should be out of here by five if you’re quick.”

So I doggedly worked for the afternoon, cashing people out and reordering supplies on the shelf while Lena tended to other things. It wasn’t a terribly demanding job. I laughed at jokes I’d heard a thousand times and checked my cell phone compulsively, seeking a text from Pierre rather than Luke. I’d gone from having no guys to worry about to two in one night.

Lena waved goodbye when my replacement came in, a younger guy named Jake who I sort of got along with. I glanced at the clock and was worried when I saw the time: it was already quarter to six and I had to drive all the way to Pierre’s house. I texted him to say I might be a few minutes late and booked it through town to the edge of the forest, where his home sat in quiet loneliness.

It was a bummer that I couldn’t change out of my dorky work uniform but I wasn’t too concerned. I locked my car and walked up the crunchy gravel driveway to Pierre’s dimly illuminated home, glancing around nervously in the darkness. It was kind of creepy near the forest. I stood on his porch and had raised my fist to knock when it was suddenly pulled open with a flourish.

Pierre’s black hair was tousled like he had recently woken up, and the sleeves on his grey dress shirt were pushed back to reveal muscular forearms. He was wearing black dress pants with a belt looped through them and even had shoes on. Was he going somewhere?

I stammered a few words out. “Uh… hey. I’m here.”

He smiled, but it didn’t quite touch his eyes. “So you are. Come in, Miss Taylor.”

Oh no, we were back to the formal greetings. I stepped inside his warm home and immediately took my shoes off, hugging myself like an insecure preteen. Pierre shut the door behind me and began to walk toward the kitchen, gesturing vaguely for me to follow. I scurried like a preteen, too.

The kitchen was as cold and off-putting as Pierre could be. The counters were alabaster white and the floor was black and white patterned. All of the appliances were stainless steel. The island in the middle had a selection of various pans hanging overhead that I had noticed before, but the beams supporting it were wrought iron rather than wood. High, black-seated stools were placed around the island. The lighting was harsh and unforgiving like a hospital room.

Dr. Holt’s shoes clicked on the floor as he walked to a cabinet beside the microwave to remove two wine glasses, cupping them gently in his palms with the stems between his middle and ring fingers. He set them on the island and stood back to look down at something I couldn’t see, brow furrowed, then leaned forward to pull a long bottle of wine from the obscured rack. I stood by the doorway and blinked at him like an idiot. Wine? I wasn’t 21.

Why were we drinking, anyway? That made it hard to think about astronomy. I had a hard time stopping myself once I started, not that I’d ever tell Dr. Holt that. I hugged myself tighter.

“I would ask if you prefer red or white,” he said as he poured the purplish liquid into a glass, “but you don’t strike me as a wine connoisseur, Tatalie.” He smiled at me when he moved on to the second glass and I shrank back, humiliated. “You’re more partial to whatever ten dollars will buy at a corner store.”

I covered my face. Please let me disappear, God.

“I’m so, so sorry,” I said for the hundredth time. “I didn’t know you’d call me and I swear nothing like that will happen again. It was so disrespectful of me.”

The cap was screwed back on the bottle and Pierre returned it to the rack. He swept one of the goblets into his hand and took a distinguished sip from it, watching the steel clock on his wall with great interest. I’d really screwed up. He was trying to help me and I was acting like a drunken moron.

“If you’d like my help, you cannot attend those types of parties,” he said, swirling my cup of wine by with a casual twist of the wrist. “I cannot mold a drunken teenager into a genius.”

“That’s fine,” I conceded. I figured I could hide it from him easily enough, anyway.

“Good. Take your wine and we can begin reviewing the properties you recited to me last week.”

At that, I hesitated. “I’m not 21.”

Pierre’s smiled widened and he walked around the edge of the island to approach me, tall and imposing under the bright lights. He offered the glass to me with his palm tilted forward.

“A bit of wine loosens the mind,” he purred.

“But… are you sure…?”

“My mother was French, Natalie. I do not have the same qualms about a bit of harmless alcohol that you Americans seem to cling to.” He turned the cup around a bit to make the liquid stir around like a wave. “You will be perfectly lucid after one small glass.”

“…Alright.” I accepted it and looked down at the foreign drink, then back up at Pierre. “Oh, and I prefer white. Don’t look down on us hillbilly Americans too much, Dr. Holt.”

Pierre’s white teeth shone through his lips in a grin. “Oh, you _are_ a treat.”

We went to the living room and sat together on the big black couch to start my astronomy class. It was mostly review and I wasn’t caught up on a single problem, breezing through each rapid-fire question with ease and surprising even myself. Pierre put on a pair of reading glasses to study my scribblings that somehow made him even more attractive, and I busied myself with my wine. Nope. After all the drama, it wasn’t a good idea to start letting my mind wander.

While he was correcting the last of my responses and I silently nursed my dwindling cup of wine, my mind began to wander all on its own. Hm. He wasn’t 30 yet. He was older than me, but that wasn’t too big of a deal. If I brought someone like Pierre to a party it would make Luke really jealous.

No, no; that would ruin everything. Professors weren’t supposed to date students and ten years kind of was a big deal. I frowned a little. There had to be a woman in his life, anyway. There was no reason why someone like Pierre would live totally alone on the fringes of society. I thought he’d be a weirdo but he was incredibly sophisticated and self-assured, and the way he _walked_ —it was odd, but it looked like he was floating across the floor sometimes. Everything about him was effortless.

“You should consider bringing a flask to class,” Pierre said, stroking his chin. “If it’s possible, your math is even more precise with a glass of wine coursing through your veins.”

“See? I have a perfectly valid excuse for partying, which is why I should continue to do it.”

He glanced at me from the corner of his eye. I had drawn my legs up on the couch and curled them underneath myself as the hours ticked by, leaning back like I was being painted in an expensive portrait. I stopped dead in the middle of a sip of wine when I saw Pierre staring at me and began slowly unwinding my legs to put my feet back on the floor.

He touched my foot gently. “I was only evaluating how much wine you had left, Natalie. You’re free to make yourself comfortable.”

“Sorry,” I ejaculated before I could stop myself. “And I’m sorry for apologizing, too.”

“Are you sorry for forgetting the nightgown as well?”

I gasped and covered my mouth in horror. Oh, shit! After how many times I promised I’d bring it back, it completely slipped my mind!

“I’m so sorry!” I said, horrified. “That’s so rude of me! If you want I can go home and get it now.”

Pierre laughed, and it sounded like he didn’t do that often. That or he was forcing himself. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll remember when I see you Friday evening. Speaking of which, it’s getting late. I’ve kept you almost two hours past the time I promised you could leave.”

I set my glass on the coffee table and turned to look at the clock hanging on the back wall. Yep, it was nearly 11 o’clock but it seemed like I’d only been at Dr. Holt’s house for an hour. I bit my lower lip and turned back to face him with a funny reply prepared, but his cold blue eyes doused my sense of humor. Was I imposing? It was probably a good idea to go home.

“I didn’t even notice,” I said. Hell, I hadn’t even glanced at my cell phone.

“Neither did I. The wonders of space are quite engrossing.” Pierre shut the notebook and scooped my empty glass off the coffee table, rising fluidly from the couch. “Another glass, Miss Taylor?”

“Um… are you sure you don’t want me to leave?”

“I happened to be enjoying your company. Are you offended by mine?”

When I stood up, it wasn’t nearly as graceful. The wine rushed straight to my head and I stumbled, causing Pierre to raise an eyebrow. In spite of my love for alcohol, I was a horrible lightweight.

I clutched my head and grimaced. “Sorry, kind of woozy.”

Pierre’s blue eyes shifted down my body and he finished the last bit of his wine. “I’m very fond of the way you constantly apologize for slight affronts. It’s… endearing.”

“Like a puppy gnawing on your fingers or a drunk person proclaiming their undying love?”

“The prior. I don’t find it unappealing. Why don’t you sit and relax? I’ll bring the wine so you don’t collapse and fall into a coma.”

“You’re so considerate,” I muttered as he walked away.

Dutifully, I sunk back into the soft embrace of the couch and licked my lips, savoring the sweet aftertaste of the wine. That was the nice thing about softer drinks—they made you feel pleasantly warm and sleepy instead of invincible and nauseous. It was nice to drink socially without intending on getting wasted and throwing up in a plant. Pierre was well on his way to making me as fancy as he was.

I looked over the edge of the couch at the clock again. Mom and dad would wonder where I was but they wouldn’t worry, which meant I could stay out fairly late. I’d still be able to drive home after one more glass and I wouldn’t have to hog Pierre’s spare bedroom again.

No, I needed to go home after one more measly glass and sleep in my own bed. It was like I had no sense of self-restraint anymore, what with Amanda on the other side of the country and Luke agonizingly silent. My vision was a bit hazy. Only one glass of wine and I was already half-asleep.

Pierre returned and offered me my glass back, but this time it was filled with a clearer variety of wine. I smiled wryly at him when he sat down beside me and his lips twanged with a returning smile, parting slightly to imbibe a sip of white wine. Was I looking at the wrong men? Were there really ones like Pierre wandering around alone and unattached, waiting to be found? He was too good to be true.

“You’re really not with anyone?” I asked, emboldened by the wine.

He smirked like he was enjoying a private joke. “No. I don’t function well in relationships.”

Huh. That was a bit of a bummer. I took a dainty drink from my glass and set it on the coffee table as my eyes began to close. My belly was warm and comfortable.

“Drowsy, Miss Taylor?”

“Mhm,” I murmured. “Must have been all the fun astronomy.”

“Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.”

“Yeah… guess so…”

I could see Pierre watching me through my steadily failing vision. The glass was tipped to his lips and his eyes were narrowed and calculative like a cat eyeing a mouse, waiting for the proper moment to strike. He set his glass beside mine and I felt bad I had hardly made it through a mouthful of the wine. That was rude of me to ask for something and not bother finishing it.

He propped his chin in his palm. “Will you be sleeping here this evening?”

Even though his words made my heart wrench nervously I couldn’t draw myself out of my stupor. I yawned, nodding slowly, and my head lolled lazily to the side. Whatever. One more night wouldn’t kill me or anything, would it? Dr. Holt was a nice guy.

Pierre stood, and I soon felt him lifting me off the couch like I was light as a feather. I drooped over his shoulder and struggled to open my eyes, vaguely realizing that one glass of wine shouldn’t have such a strong effect upon me. But he carried me up the stairs and down the hall to a different bedroom; his bedroom, and carefully laid me on the bed. I rolled over on my side and nestled into the soft sheets.

A drawer opened. “While I wouldn’t mind you sleeping in my bed, I’m worried about what your reaction will be when you wake up,” Pierre said. He rummaged. “Hm, no more woman clothes. Pity. I need to remember to keep some articles instead of wasting them.”

_What…?_

A shadow eclipsed me and I blearily looked up to see Pierre standing over me, smiling with his head cocked. It must have been a trick of the light, but he looked awfully scary. He placed something besides my head and put his hands on his hips like he was waiting for me to do something.

Confused, I glanced over to see a pair of grey pajama pants and a blue dress shirt folded neatly on the sheets. I assumed it was for me to wear to bed and I blindly reached for the pants without considering where I was or what I was doing. His eyes were on me. I dragged the pants onto my stomach and began unbuttoning my khakis, fumbling with the complicated motions. Shit, I was exhausted.

“Would you like some help, Natalie?” crooned Pierre.

I could barely get my own eyelids open. I nodded.

Then I felt his fingers brush my belly as he unbuttoned my pants for me and pulled them down my legs so they dropped with a muffled sound to the floor. He took the pajama pants and grasped my calf gently to slide each of my legs into them, leaning forward to bring them up to my hips. I slumped against his chest when he lifted me to pull off my shirt but noted that he left my bra alone. He moved my arms into the sleeves of the dress shirt and allowed me to drop back to the covers.

When I heard his belt clinking, I whimpered reflexively. No, no, don’t…

“Shh,” he whispered, “be still, ma petite fille. I’m only changing out of my own clothes.” The belt hissed out of the loops and I heard it fall to the floor. “Admittedly, I’m a bit tempted.”

My eyes rolled back in my head as I finally passed out. Whatever. Dr. Holt was a nice guy.


	9. In the fell clutch of circumstance

A sharp and painful ringing in my ears drove me from unconsciousness the next morning.

I buried my head under the sheets and squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the horrible agony to ebb away before I started crying. Shit, it hurt worse than when I broke my finger during a softball game. I struggled to remember exactly how much I had drank the night before but my memory was spotty and weak, only drawing vague snippets of Pierre sitting beside me on the couch.

All was not lost, though. I was in the bed I had slept in before and from what I was feeling, we hadn’t done anything. I squeezed my thighs together and shivered slightly from both the pulsing pain between my ears and the thought of actually doing _something_ with Dr. Holt. Alcohol never seemed to work out well for me—I was probably in so much pain because I’d drank so much the night of Luke’s party. I curled into a ball and took uneven, deep breaths.

The low groan on the bedroom door opening caught my attention. I turned over to blearily regard the visitor and wasn’t shocked to see Pierre standing in the doorframe with his hands in his pockets. He was dressed formally again in a charcoal grey dress shirt like he had somewhere to be. His chin was tilted up slightly and he was looking down on me, cold blue eyes studying my face. My chest felt tight.

“It’s nearly mid-afternoon, Natalie,” he murmured. “I worried you would never wake.”

“I’m okay, I’m okay.” I tried to push myself up in bed and winced. “That’s some intense wine you have. What is it 100-proof or something?”

He smiled tautly. “Of course not. Perhaps you were already predisposed to exhaustion.”

It kind of made sense to my befuddled mind. I shrugged, weakly sitting up to rub the sleepiness from my face, and I noticed long blue sleeves drape around my elbows. My spine prickled as I glanced down to see a flat grey pair of pajama pants on my legs instead of my khakis from work. They were baggy and hung loosely around my hips, just like the dress shirt was big on my upper body.

_“Would you like some help, Natalie?”_

I pulled the sheets up to my chin and stared into them as heat crept into my cheeks. Oh god no. No. I did not pass out after one glass of wine and let Dr. Holt put me in pajamas. His pajamas, no less! Where did my constant idiocy end? When would I stop embarrassing myself in front of him?

“I’m so sorry,” I muttered into the covers, hiding my face. “I’ll never come here again.”

“But I would miss your endless blunders.”

The clothes smelled like his cologne, a mild scent that didn’t impose or distract the senses. I pushed my face deeper into the soft comforter and hoped I would suffocate then and there. He thought me constantly behaving like a dope was funny, but I knew he wouldn’t be laughing for very long. If I got drunk again and accidentally called or texted Pierre…

I slumped forward, folding over my pretzel-shaped legs. “I’m such an idiot.”

The bed shifted and I peered from my tangles of hair to see Pierre sitting at the end, hands clasped politely in his lap. It was a much different picture from the way he’d been looking at me the night before. Now he was pleasant and formal instead of scrutinizing and intimidating. His hair was brushed properly and more composed than it had been when I walked in the door, terrified that he was going to yell for my recent behavior.

Pierre didn’t seem like the shouting type, though. He actually didn’t strike me as the kind of man who argued at all, but was very good at settling arguments with calm words and logic. I blinked at him a few times before hiding my face again. He’d make someone happy, even if he hated relationships.

“You never returned my call last weekend,” he said. “I hope you weren’t harmed.”

I shook my head miserably. “No, I’m always careful when I go out. But it was the closest I’ve ever been to having something happen, and it was Luke of all people.” I sighed and stared into the dark recesses of the sheets, filled with unyielding sadness. “Now he won’t talk to me. Lately I’ve become really good at screwing things up, and Amanda’s gonna get a kick out of it when she comes home.”

The bed moved slightly. “Luke Higgins, correct? An exercise science major.”

“Yeah, that’s him. He’s a nice guy and we’ve been friends since we were little. Of course, that doesn’t mean anything now and he’s dating the captain of the volleyball team, Miranda Kemp.”

“Miranda? Is that with an ‘i’ or a ‘y’?”

“’I’,” I replied offhandedly. Now I was on a roll and the words weren’t stopping. I raised my head from the covers and brushed my hair out of my face, scowling. “I mean, she’s nice and everything but I’ve been his friend forever so it’s annoying seeing her come in and take him like that. You know?”

“I’m ascertaining that you’re attracted to him,” Pierre said.

“He should’ve apologized to me!” I fumed, completely ignoring Pierre. “He dragged me up the stairs and pushed me down on the floor. He made me so nervous that I puked. I have nothing to apologize for.”

Dr. Holt opened his mouth to reply but the peal of the doorbell interrupted him. His head snapped in the direction of the bedroom door like a cornered wild animal, and he looked back at me a few seconds later with a pacifying smile. He rose from the bed and I also moved to stand but he gestured for me to stay in the room. I didn’t want anyone catching me in such an incriminating situation so I quietly obeyed and slid beneath the sheets as Pierre left the room.

His steps were so light that I couldn’t hear them on the stairs, but I heard the front door hiss as the doorjamb slid across the smooth wooden floor. I strained my ears to hear a voice, curious to know what kinds of people Dr. Holt associated with. He struck me as a loner.

A deep male voice greeted Pierre and I heard hands clap together. The door shut a few moments later and laughter drifted up the stairs. I gnawed on my lower lip, debating whether or not to investigate, and chose to slip out of bed to see who had come over to the lonely house at the edge of the woods. Shoes clicked on the familiar linoleum in the kitchen and I swayed out of bed to make my way downstairs.

My vision swam. I had to lean against the wall once or twice to regain my bearings and very, very carefully chose each step I took. Whoever Pierre was talking to was clearly a good friend because their conversation didn’t lull in the slightest. The sweatpants kept slipping down my hips. Damn, Pierre kept some really pungent wine. I didn’t know when I’d be able to drive again.

Pierre was leaning against the kitchen counter with a glass of water in his hand, smiling at a slightly shorter man sitting at the island. I stepped unsurely into the room to observe them and noticed the newcomer was kind of old, maybe in his 50s or pushing 60. He had grey hair that was pulled into a ponytail at the nape of his neck and plenty of wrinkles on his face, along with some extra weight. I squinted at him, trying to decide what he was.

Dr. Holt’s gaze flickered to me and the man sitting at the island turned to see what he was looking at, promptly fixating me with a shocked stare. He had brown eyes that were much less penetrating than Pierre’s and I noticed a faded gold wedding band on his finger. Shit! Why did I keep looking for signs of people being married?! I needed to get my head checked.

I wavered on my feet. The man’s eyes narrowed infinitesimally but neither of them spoke.

“I’m sorry!” I blurted. “I’ll go back upstairs and sleep or something.” I took a step backwards, waving stupidly at them and tripping over my own feet.

The man stood up suddenly. “No, please, join us. I’m Dr. Louis Purlieu. What’s your name?”

Pierre wasn’t smiling anymore. His gaze was hard and directed toward the formal dining room, completely avoiding Dr. Purlieu and I. Maybe Louis worked at the school and I had accidentally given us away. We hadn’t done anything wrong, except for my glass of wine, but it would’ve looked that way because I was wearing Pierre’s clothes. Goddammit, I needed to start doing what I was told.

I rocked back on my heels, ready to bolt. “Um… I’m actually not feeling very good so I’ll just go back to bed and let you two finish talking.” I pulled on the shirt and laughed sheepishly. “This is really not what it looks like, even though I know it looks bad. Uh… I um…” I pressed to the wall, terrified of Dr. Purlieu’s eyes and Pierre’s angry, redirected expression. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Louis said. “I don’t work for your college. I’m an old acquaintance of Dr. Holt’s and nothing more. Come sit with us—what was your name?”

The cup Pierre was drinking from was slammed down on the island and I jolted in surprise, heart thundering like a fawn’s in a bear’s line of sight. He placed his palms calmly on the countertop and his head tilted a bit in a way that was supposed to be friendly but took on a frightening edge paired with his forced smile. I took another step back.

“You still look very pale, princesse,” he said, layering on his accent thick in the last word. “Perhaps you should rest a bit longer before returning home today, hm?”

“I’m sorry,” I squeaked. “I’ll go back upstairs!”

Holy hell was he menacing. I’d never been frightened to the point of shaking, but I noticed my knees were wobbling under Pierre’s frigid blue eyes. It felt like they were shoving me out of the room.

“Now, now, we mustn’t be rude, Pierre,” Louis said calmly. “Sit with us, please. I insist.”

Ah, I’d probably embarrassed Dr. Holt beyond belief. He sucked in his right cheek and turned to face the sink without saying another word, so I tentatively tiptoed to the island. I sat beside Dr. Purlieu and he smiled at me warmly, holding his own glass of water. He was dressed to the nines like Pierre.

I twiddled my thumbs. “My name’s Natalie Taylor and I swear I didn’t… you know, sleep with him last night or anything.” I leaned closer to Louis, conspiratorial. “We didn’t even sleep in the same bed.”

“You can call me Louis, Natalie. I’ve been a psychiatrist for nearly 30 years.”

“Really? That’s cool. I was considering that for my major but Pierre convinced me to do astronomy.” I winced as a small tremor of pain wracked my head.

“Or were you dragooned into it?”

Something clinked in the sink. “Don’t use such archaic terms, Louis. They escape Natalie’s notice.”

“Thanks,” I muttered, glaring at Pierre’s back.

Louis’s eyes moved between us. “I’m going to make an assumption that you enjoy the same mathematical drivel Pierre is so fond of, correct?”

I figured Louis was trying to get a reaction out of Pierre. He turned to face us, scowling.

“It could be worse,” he said tersely. “I could have a Ph.D. in a pseudoscience.”

“You’re so fiercely defensive of your stars and theories.”

“And you undeniably sleep with your prescription pad tucked under your pillow in the event a patient needs a hit of Xanax before his next appointment.”

“I don’t have a Ph.D. in anything!” I said cheerfully.

The two of them didn’t break eye contact for a couple more moments but Pierre eventually returned to preparing the dishes for the washer. I shifted in my seat. It was pretty awkward watching two smart people arguing about their degrees. Both of them were useful in my opinion.

“Well, I suppose I should be going,” Louis said. He glanced at his watch and sighed. “Maria won’t be very happy with me if I miss our dinner tonight. As always, it was a pleasure seeing you, Pierre.” He turned to me as he rose and inclined his head. “Stay safe, Miss Taylor.”

And a minute later, I was left alone in the kitchen with Dr. Holt.

It was mildly terrifying. I could tell he was angry by the stiff way he put things in the dishwasher and of course, how he refused to turn and look at me. Shamed, I slid off my seat and tried to creep out of the room with my tail between my legs like a dog that had been scolded. It was better to leave him alone and let him collect his thoughts. Besides, I was almost ready to drive home.

“Natalie.”

I stopped dead, flinching. “Yes?”

A few cups clattered together. “Where are you going?”

_As far away as I can get right now._

“You seem busy so I was going to go back upstairs and lie down again,” I said.

Pierre put the last of the dishes in the machine and turned it on before regarding me, idly drying his hands with a red dishcloth. I waited with bated breath for his next words.

“You must be hungry,” he said. “Would you like to go out for dinner this evening?”

_WHAT?!_

I rubbed my forehead. “I’m sorry, I must still be hung over or something. Did you ask if I wanted to go out for dinner? It’s only like three in the afternoon and I’ve been enough of a pain in the ass.”

“Only when you disobey me,” his murmured, smiling. “If you’d like, I can make us dinner here instead, or I can bring you home so you can change. As attractive as I find them, I doubt you’ll want to be seen in public with my ill-fitting clothes draped over you, oui?”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? You don’t have to clothe me and feed me.”

Pierre stroked his chin, eyeing me with interest. “No, I don’t, but I do enjoy it. We will eat here this evening and go out to dine on a day you’re feeling more… chipper.” He flipped the towel over his shoulder and looked toward his huge stainless steel refrigerator. “What to make, I wonder?”

Oh god, my French professor was going to make me dinner. It immediately conjured images of snails reinforced by jokes on the playground when I was a kid, but also reminded me that they really enjoyed their wine. I gagged at the thought of drinking any more of it and Pierre’s gaze returned to me again.

“Can we, um… skip the wine?” I asked contritely.

“Of course. We’ll have champagne instead.”


	10. What immortal hand or eye,

The small family flickering on the hotel’s television was all smiles, gazing fondly upon one another in their blessed little web of dysfunctional perfection. They chased one another about their carefully constructed home and shook fists but toward the end of the episode, they were always brought back together. I took a long drag from my cigarette as I watched them prance about and pointedly ignored the woman quivering beside me. She could wait.

My impromptu supper with Natalie had been painstaking. It was an unfortunately vital part of my plan—to possess her via microcuts rather than one violent intrusion—and I had been severely strained the length of our dinner. The cocktail of barbiturates in her wine had worked too well and I had a difficult time controlling myself when she was lying prone and vulnerable on my bed. I twisted my neck at the memory and tightened my jaw. No matter. Patience was my greatest asset.

However, my obsessive tendencies were a serious detriment. Hardly a week had gone by since I first laid eyes upon Miss Taylor and each evening I forcibly twisted my wheel in the opposing direction of her home nestled in the suburbs to the dark, forbidding city. There were plenty of substitutes.

The girl beside me began to sob into the layers of duct tape I had pressed across her mouth. She was not the typical filth I scraped from the sidewalks, but a perfectly respectable teenager who had wandered down the sidewalk while my starving eyes hunted for the next meal. Short, thin, brown hair, and blue eyes that I had grown to truly loathe. I’d only bound her wrists and done nothing more. If I missed my sitcom, my psyche would splinter.

Renee was her name. She was trembling violently enough to shake the bed and it irritated me. I held my cigarette between my lips and kept my eyes trained on the television to watch the news report, idly grasping her by the hair at the nape of her neck to drag her into my lap. I grasped my sheathed knife by the hilt and offered the covered blade to her until she obediently exposed the stained silver.

“Thank you,” I said offhandedly. I squinted at the screen, yanking on Renee’s hair. “It’s that Russian character again. He’s already caused an incident.” I shook my head and sighed. “Some people don’t know how to clean up their own mess, Renee. I’ll make sure there isn’t a drop of you left.”

She shrieked, struggling wildly in my grasp and nearly causing me to drop my cigarette. I pulled on her hair until it began to give way at the root and forced her onto her stomach, pushing her face into the pillows. Her hips trembled between my knees. I held the knife loosely in the crux of my thumb to exhale a plume of smoke and ground the remnants out on Renee’s exposed shoulder blade. Her screaming was absorbed by the pillows and was reduced to only a muffled protest.

The knife wasn’t particularly necessary to keep them demure but it certainly helped the process along. I placed it carefully on the nightstand and continued pressing her face into the pillows whilst unbuckling my pants, still listening to the television playing loudly across the room. The soap operas had begun.

I lay down flat across Renee’s shivering body, relishing in her fear, and lifted her head briefly to gauge her facial expression. Her eyes were squeezed shut. It was a pity: I was accustomed to women wholeheartedly agreeing to sex but staunchly refusing to let me stab them. It was for the betterment of mankind. When I had Natalie in my grasp, my sprees would surely decrease in ferocity and quantity.

My dear Renee had worn a skirt. It was lined with frilled lace and colored dark blue, highly inappropriate for the weather outside. She thrashed violently when I slowly moved her panties aside and my fingers briefly brushed against her sex. Though I was tempted to take her immediately, I was not willing to risk contracting a vicious disease from a strange woman on the street.

I casually slid my middle finger inside her and she seized, squeezing her thighs together in pain. She was tight and unyielding; perhaps one of the few virgins I had stumbled across. I pressed my face into her hair and inhaled deeply, slowly stretching her while she wept into her pillow.

“How did you know I like mango shampoo?” I murmured into her scalp.

Renee ceased movement upon hearing the rather distracting tear of my protection. It was mildly disappointing, but release was release and I would not throw away such a valuable discovery.

The bed made incriminating sounds when my body finally joined the unwilling woman beneath me. I had taken so many in the same bed that I knew precisely which way to move to avoid the noises, but it seemed to upset my resistant victims much more when they could hear and feel me moving inside them. The goal was to humiliate and dominate, after all.

I buried my face in Renee’s neck to stifle my moans that I was helpless to control. I’d tried many times to remain silent during the process and occasionally, it was possible, but her slick tightness reminded me keenly of what Natalie would feel like. Oh, Natalie. I would surely be violent with her.

One of my hands wrapped about Renee’s neck. Yes, I would squeeze her windpipe to feel her writhe against me; I would hold her fragile life in my palm, free to quash her when I pleased. Her mouth would remain uncovered so I could hear her tiny voice begging and pleading and squealing and her sobs would resonate all the better in her mouth. It was dangerous and left me in a precarious position, but perhaps I would force her to take me between her pretty lips.

Ah, the way she watched me through half-lidded eyes while I stripped her. I groaned into Renee’s neck, strongly considering taking her clothing for Natalie to wear if she ‘accidentally’ slept in my home again. Skirts were best. They offered little protection and a swift assault.

No, no; I was going to take my time with Miss Taylor. It would be a grand event each time and I would never squander her away. Against my instinct, I would not stab her exactly 33 times to let her bleed out on my bed sheets. There would be copious white wine and a loud piece of music for the first evening—perhaps Mozart’s Requiem or Beethoven’s 5th Symphony—to set her fears alight and let them burn through her bones. The way her cries would mingle with each musical note…

Renee choked on her tears as I plateaued inside her with guttural groan. Her narrow passage went into a fit of spasms and joined in my pleasure, much to my delight. I thrust deep within her and ruefully wished Natalie was twisting helplessly against me, betrayed by her own body. Soon I would coerce her into such things and rip her hidden ecstasy free. She would belong to me.

I panted a bit into Renee’s hair to catch my breath before leaning back and opening my Mason jar. Her shoulders rose and feel as she took deep inhalations and listened to what I was preparing to do next. I deposited the condom as usual, the epicenter of genetic material, and placed the jar back on the nightstand to grasp the knife. The girl was trying to turn her head to look at me so I politely turned her onto her back so her teary blue eyes were staring up at me.

The girl’s bound wrists were positioned protectively over her chest but her gaze weakened upon seeing the knife in my hand. I moved her arms above her head to grant access to the vulnerable expanse of her upper body and smiled down at her. Renee closed her eyes and began to cry again.

“Hush,” I murmured, running my fingers along the top of the blade, “it will all be over soon.”

My impulse drew my arm forward in a fluid motion to sink the blade with a bloody squelch beneath Renee’s left breast. Her eyes bulged in agony; the realization that her life was within seconds of being extinguished, and a lamented cry was lost in the duct tape. I drew back, violently tearing the knife from her suction-cup flesh. Human skin had an elastic quality—when it was penetrated, it would stubbornly hold the offending object to retain as much blood as possible.

Stabbing a person to death was no simple task. It required extensive knowledge of the human body and the physical stamina to repeatedly penetrate unyielding flesh. I had grown accustomed to the difficult work involved and could successfully complete my 33 stabs without becoming completely exhausted.

Twenty minutes later my hands were covered in blood. I trembled slightly, again finding myself gazing down at the chilling corpse of another teenage girl. My intense compulsions drove me and my lack of conscience permitted me to kill them without losing sleep at night: to enjoy their deaths and relish in the fore coating my fingers. I wiped my bloody palm across her vacant eyes.

Clean-up was efficient as always. I rolled the body into the sheets and lifted Renee gently into my arms to bring her to her resting place. The attendant was looking through his phone as always and I quietly left, lying the corpse down in the backseat.

I stood before the swamp as Renee slowly sank into its depths. There would be many more sacrifices before I had attained my goal. I slipped my hands into my pockets and gazed at the murky water as it swallowed the last fiber of the girl’s hair, hiding my crime for the conceivable rest of time.


	11. I have not winced nor cried aloud.

That Friday morning, before my second meeting with Pierre, I lay on my bed in my pajamas idly kicking my legs back and forth while Amanda showed me sea shells she found. Her hair was plastered to her head from the salt water and she had a bit of sunburn but was obviously having a ton of fun. I ‘ooed’ and ‘ahhed’ her growing collection, glancing at my cell phone occasionally in the hopes that Pierre sent me a random text. He’d grown fairly quiet after we had dinner together.

I’d been as polite as possible and eaten all of my food like mom and dad had taught me. Wasting the meal someone cooked could be read as a social faux-pas so I ate and ate until I was sure my stomach would burst open and spew the food into my other organs. We’d eaten in the formal dining room and Pierre sat across from me, cupping his glass of champagne and watching me chatter on and on through half-lidded eyes. It looked like he was daydreaming but still lucid enough to nod at the right times.

Amanda cocked her head, frowning. “You’ve been different lately, Natalie. Is Luke still bothering you about what happened at the party? That wasn’t your fault. You should tell Miranda.”

It was pretty horrible not being able to tell my best friend that I had been wined and dined by my very attractive astronomy professor. He’d even taken care of me when I was acting like a drunken moron and changed me into clean pajamas when I passed out after a glass of wine. I shivered a little at the memory of his fingertips grazing gently across my calves. It hadn’t been my best moment.

“These astronomy classes are so hard,” I whined. “I’ve only done one so far but Dr. Holt said it’s gonna get even worse.” I pouted my lower lip like a sad puppy. “Do my homework for me?”

“Oh, hell no. The genius in you has been exposed and she isn’t slinking away yet. It must be weird taking the classes online instead of being able to see him, though. I’d have a hard time getting things done on time without watching the lesson directly.”

“I manage,” I said.

My best friend had to go soon after because her little brother, Tony, was screaming about going out for dinner. She sarcastically blew me a kiss and ended the call while yelling at him to quit being a brat, leaving me staring at my black laptop screen. I sighed pitifully and leaned my head on my arm.

Knocking on the front door made me jump in surprise and I nearly flung my laptop off the bed. I rolled off my sheets and stumbled out of my room in my rush to answer it, flying down the stairs and skidding across the kitchen floor. Sophie told me to slow down from the living room. My heart was pounding and I found myself stupidly hoping it was Pierre coming over to invite me to his house early.

Luke was standing before me in jeans and a t-shirt with his hands in his pockets. He smiled sheepishly and nodded his head in greeting. I stared at him. He didn’t drop by randomly anymore.

“Can I come in?” he asked with a small laugh.

“I’m gonna tell mom you had a boy in your bedroom!”

I spun around to see Sophie standing in the kitchen doorframe also wearing her rattiest pajamas and clutching a blue bowl of popcorn to her chest. She shoveled a fitful in her mouth and while I glared at her, Luke stepped past me and walked inside without saying another word.

“Beat it,” he said. He was well-acquainted with Sophie’s obnoxious behavior. “I’ll tell Miranda to let her parents know what you’ve been doing with her little brother.”

My eyes widened in outrage. Sophie was sleeping with the enemy! Traitor!

But it worked. Sophie stuck her tongue out and morosely returned to the living room to watch cartoons on our big flatscreen that dad got as a bonus from work. Luke shut the door behind him and smiled down at me again, radiant and bright like a ray of sunshine. It was odd how different he was from Pierre, who was more of a passionate and mysterious storm front that was probably too smart for me.

I leaned on the kitchen table, trying to feign nonchalance, and nearly fell over again. Shit.

“So, uh, what’s up?” I asked as I blew my hair out of my face.

“Nothing. I needed to talk to you in person. Can we go upstairs to get some privacy?”

My mouth went dry. “Er… yeah, I guess. Is something wrong?” I straightened up and put my hands out defensively, hurrying to protect my reputation. “I didn’t mean for anything to happen over the weekend, if that’s what you want to talk about. If you told Miranda tell her I’m really sorry.”

Luke didn’t reply, but grabbed my wrist and pulled me up to my bedroom. Sophie watched us through slitted eyelids as we ascended the stairs and popped individual pieces of popcorn in her mouth. I flipped her off before Luke pulled me around the corner to the second flight.

He whisked me into my room, kicking the door shut with his heel so it closed with a bang, then grasped my face between his hands. I hardly had time to squeal in shock before his lips were on mine in an aggressive and demanding way. Luke slammed me into my wall and held my face tightly with one hand to keep my mouth firmly pressed to his but wasted no time in slipping his tongue in my mouth.

Naturally, I bit him.

My childhood friend stumbled back and held his bleeding lip with an offended expression on his face. I was shaking, conforming my body as close to the wall as possible. We stared at one another.

“W-what was that for?!” I demanded. “You can’t do that!”

His lip puckered slightly as he tasted his blood. He was smiling. “C’mon, Nat; I was only trying to finish what we started. I was thinking it over since the party and decided it would work out for both of us. Don’t you want me? You sure as hell act like it.”

My eyes bugged. “You… you… What about Miranda?”

“I’ve gotta keep her around for appearances, Natty.” He tilted his head, grinning down at me lasciviously. “You understand, right?”

It felt like my soul was being run through a trash compactor. Not just my heart—I’d grown to love Luke beyond that sort of mortal bond and really wished he would open his eyes to that. But as I examined the man standing a few feet away from me flashing his pearly whites, I realized I had gotten caught up in a fairy tale again. The people you loved could very easily become the people you hated.

Luke had changed. He was not the same cute, quirky kid I had grown up catching frogs with and playing Pokemon all afternoon. He’d become a grown man and his moral compass was pointing in a radically different direction. My fingernails scraped on the wall. I was such a moron.

He frowned. “Something wrong?”

“You should leave,” I said in a breaking voice.

“Aw, you don’t mean that.”

“Get out, Luke. Now.”

But he wasn’t hesitating. Luke rolled his eyes and then he was crushing his body against mine again, smiling and shaking his head like I was a disobedient child. He covered my mouth and yanked me away from the wall to drop me on my bed while I kicked and screamed and tried to gnaw on his fingers, dizzied with fear. He was heavier than all hell and snatched my wrists in just one of his hands to pin them above my head. It _hurt_.

Luke leaned in close so I could see the dark flecks in his irises. I stared at him in terror, tears already streaming down my cheeks. How could he hate me? I loved him. How could he hate me?

And he promptly slapped me hard across the face, leaving my mouth exposed for a moment. I choked on my sobs but didn’t shriek like I should have. It was worse than a sting; worse than breaking my ankle. The pain gnawed down to the marrow of my bones as Luke smacked me again when I began to wail, trying to make me shut up. I could barely catch my breath to beg him to stop.

He squeezed my wrists. “See? I knew you didn’t mean it, Natty. Let’s be quiet so little sissy doesn’t hear us, alright? I can’t have her spilling my secrets to Miranda.”

I was paralyzed. Luke… what happened to Luke?

My bedroom door flew open the next second and banged against the wall. Sophie was holding dad’s pistol in her hand and my first reaction was older-sister concerns about how she had been able to get her hands on his gun. The thing was supposed to be locked away for emergencies.

Luke became very still on top of me. This technically counted as an emergency.

Sophie held the gun firmly, unwavering. “Get out, Higgins. Dad brings me target shooting once a month so I won’t hesitate if you don’t get off my sister.”

“Oh please, like you know how to shoot without—”

A bullet erupted with a loud bang from the barrel of the gun and was buried in my bedroom wall just past Luke’s head milliseconds later. His face had drained of color but Sophie was cool and collected, looking evenly at him with no hint of fear. She stepped back when he unwillingly got to his feet to make sure he didn’t slip behind her and try to take the weapon.

“I said get out,” Sophie snapped when he lingered near my door.

“This better not get out,” he said, moving his gaze to me rather than my sister. “I’m warning both of you freaks to keep your mouths shut.”

It was surreal hearing such nasty things coming out of Luke’s mouth. I had stopped crying from sheer shock and only stared back at his deceptively friendly expression while Sophie continued forcing him from the room, waving the gun aggressively. He could’ve taken it from her if he wanted to but he didn’t want to kill anyone. Or was that only because he didn’t want to get caught?

The front door shut and I heard all the locks sliding into place before Sophie began running around the house to make sure everything was closed. Her feet squeaked over the hardwood and she muttered a few times when stubborn windows refused to shut. I was trembling and afraid to move. Some big sister I was—constantly calling her names and relying on her to save me.

Sophie reappeared in my bedroom, her hazel eyes sharply scrutinizing my room for any signs of weakness. I didn’t think Luke would come back, but apparently I didn’t know him very well.

She heaved a sigh. “I think he’s gone, Natalie.”

I couldn’t bring myself to nod. I stared straight ahead and hardly took a breath. What the hell just happened? Why couldn’t I have something good happen without something bad taking it away right after? Pierre was trying to encourage my natural talent and my family was so proud of me, but everything was Luke fell apart over a stupid weekend not long after. There was no happy medium. It felt like I was always losing.

My little sister sat next to me on the bed and looked at her palms for a minute, then suddenly flung her arms around my neck. It was weird how emotions worked sometimes—I was pretty sure I would never speak or cry again until Sophie showed she felt for me in some way or another. I hugged her back fiercely and cried into her shoulder with wild abandon.

But there was one place in particular I _really_ wanted to go.


	12. Under the bludgeonings of chance

Dropping in on Pierre was not one of my best ideas. I was beside myself with grief and fear despite everything Sophie did to help me calm down and for some stupid reason, I thought going to see Dr. Holt would make me feel better. She watched from the front door as I scurried to my car and gave her an affirmative thumbs-up before driving off. We were both still on the lookout for Luke. I was more afraid for my sister than anything else but our parents were on their way home.

I wasn’t due to go to his house for five or so hours and the sun was still high in the sky. It made the drive down the lonely road through the silent, leafless trees a lot less creepy. I kept my hands firmly on ten ‘o clock and two ‘o clock and tried to keep my lower lip from quivering. I’d washed my face to get rid of some of the redness and dried tears but I knew they were still there.

_You’re well on your way to embarrassing yourself again, Natalie. He already thinks you’re a pain from all the trouble you’ve caused over the past week and now he’s never going to see you again._

A strangled cry tore free of my throat and I rubbed my face to hold back the tears. No wonder Luke called me a freak. I’d hardly known Pierre for a week and I was hurrying over to his house to wail about some dumb guy from our dumb college. He was almost 30 years old and had a full-time job to worry about. What did he care about teenage girl problems? I could tell I annoyed him.

“Goddammit!” I hissed, slamming my hand on the wheel. “I can’t talk to Amanda right now and I obviously can’t talk to Luke. Sophie’s too young to really get it. What the hell else am I supposed to do, sit home and wait for him to start harassing me?”

But the memories of Pierre’s irritated expression when I sidled into the kitchen during his morning with Dr. Purlieu were bright and clear in my mind. He’d slammed his cup down when I didn’t leave quick enough and refused to look at Louis and I while we talked about nothing in particular.

I narrowly avoided a tortoise trying to cross the road, violently banking my car to the left just in the nick of time. My thoughts turned curiously—was Louis actually Pierre’s therapist? Dr. Holt didn’t look like he needed mental help, what with his Ph.D. and nice house in the middle of nowhere. He dressed nicely, talked smoothly, and never made a social overstep when conversing.

No, that was crazy. They were probably old friends from… college? Louis was a lot older than me and definitely much older than Pierre. They hadn’t been clear on how they met but I’d been so startled by Pierre’s angry reaction to my presence that I didn’t ask many questions. Dr. Purlieu looked really surprised by my being at the house and he kept staring at my face like he was looking for something…

My wrists began to pulsate in pain under my baggy sweater from my aggressive driving but I couldn’t bear to look. I knew Luke had left bruises. Sophie had warned me about going out because my face didn’t look very good, either, so I’d quickly brushed on concealer to hide it. I wasn’t very good with makeup. It was splotchy but hid the gross marks well enough.

The lights were on at Pierre’s house. I stepped out of my car onto the gravel with the red nightgown draped over my arm, freshly washed and pressed courtesy of my mother. There was a television show playing really loud inside that echoed through the trees, only interrupted by a nasty blast of cold air. I pulled my hoodie more tightly around myself and hurried to the front door with a pounding heart. My palms were sweaty. I knocked once and considered running the hell back home.

There were feet on the floor that paused at the door, probably looking through the eyehole. I shuffled nervously and stared at my feet as the door was pulled open and light spilled onto the porch.

“Hey,” I mumbled without looking up. “I’m here early. Sorry.”

He was quiet for a moment. “It’s one in the afternoon, Natalie. A five hour miscalculation is rather strange. Have you come here early for another reason?”

There was no easy way to broach the subject and I was beginning to feel really stupid. I shook my head furiously and teetered back on my heel, getting ready to leave. I’d come back later, or maybe not at all. From the way I kept forcing myself on him Pierre was bound to kick me to the curb.

It was quiet for a little while and the only sound was whatever sitcom he was watching. I saw Pierre’s shoes move back as he stepped aside to let me into the house, pushing the door further open. His eyes were on me when I went inside and took my shoes off. I didn’t know how to talk about it. Now I didn’t even know if I wanted to talk about it. He was a man so he didn’t understand.

Pierre also didn’t ask questions. He walked back into the living room to sit on the couch without saying another word and I slowly followed him, still training my eyes on the floor. I sat on the other end of the sofa and picked at my hoodie while he continued to watch the TV show with one arm slung across the back of the couch. The clock ticked by in the background.

Maybe he had been busy doing something important and I interrupted him. My eyes flickered briefly from my lap and roamed the room to see Pierre intently focused on the television and a glass of water sitting in front of him. The only oddity was that he was wearing jeans and a green t-shirt instead of his typical formal attire. I looked at his hands and noticed his left that was resting casually on his knee had a slight tremor that only went away when he flexed his fingers.

“Were you busy?” I asked meekly.

His hard gaze didn’t leave the screen. His jaw was set tight. “Yes.”

Oh, goddammit. I shrank into my side of the couch and curled my legs beneath me, still holding the red nightgown in my arms. I should’ve found a party to go to instead of bothering Pierre.

A whole half hour passed before his shoulders relaxed and he looked away from the television. I couldn’t believe how dedicated he was to watching his shows; even my grandma hadn’t shown that kind of loyalty and she lounged around her house all day doing nothing. Pierre leaned forward to take a sip of his water and finally looked at me with a broad smile like nothing happened.

I held out the nightgown in a jerky motion. “I washed this and ironed it. Well, my mom did, but that’s not because I don’t know how. I was video chatting with Amanda Thursday night so… um, here you go. Thanks for letting me borrow it.”

Pierre leaned toward me to take the nightgown and his eyes were only on my face for a fraction of a second. He stopped in the middle of his movement and his blue eyes narrowed. I arched back with wide eyes, afraid that I had done something to offend him again. Did he not use laundry detergent? Some people were allergic and they’d break out in hives, so—

He put one hand on the side of the couch. “Why has your face suddenly become much darker than your neck, Miss Taylor?”

That was an even worse discovery. I quickly clapped my hands over my cheeks like it would help hide my terrible make-up job and winced in pain. “It’s nothing. I don’t know how to use that stuff.”

“You’re right, you don’t. My mother could have offered a few helpful hints.” He moved closer until he was sitting right beside me, smiling frigidly. “Who was it?”

I blanched. “Who was who? I don’t know what you mean.”

Dr. Holt curled the nightgown around his hand and tried to wipe it across my cheek, but I jerked back before he could touch me, trapped between him and the couch. He grabbed my chin to keep me still and it was like being held by an iron bar: I could barely swallow. He licked the nightgown and drew it vertically down my cheek and I whimpered in pain from the bruise being touched.

He tutted like a hen, tilting my head to the side to see the entirety of the wound. I couldn’t see his expression but he didn’t sound angry, just disappointed. It was the weirdest reaction I could’ve imagined given the circumstances, like a mother chastising her child for tripping outside.

“I got in a fight with Sophie,” I blurted. “We’re sisters so we do stuff like this sometimes, you know?”

“Que vais-je faire avec vous?” he said in a low tone.

Pierre released my face so I could turn to look at him but snatched my elbow a second later and held on tightly to push back my sleeve. My hand hung limply from my purple wrist, exposed and ugly. He did the same with my other sleeve and both of my wrists were in front of me so I was forced to remember what had happened with Luke. I averted my eyes to my lap in shame.

“Your sister has a very strong grip,” he murmured.

His fingers gently closed around the tips of mine and he raised my arms to delicately kiss my wrists, one and then the other. I still couldn’t bring myself to look at him. What the hell was I supposed to say? I didn’t really want to talk about it—I wasn’t into mushy feeling kind of stuff and I figured I’d cried enough times in front of Pierre to last me a lifetime. I chewed on the inside of my cheek.

Then he looked at me over my knuckles and his eyes were inscrutable, but he was smiling. I tried to disappear into the upholstery but he held my fingers with tender, unyielding pressure, not intending on letting go anytime soon. It was impossible to tell if he was angry and forcing himself to smile or genuinely found my injuries to be amusing, but I hoped it wasn’t the prior.

“I can go,” I said awkwardly. “It’s not like I can write, anyway. Maybe next week we can meet earlier and I’ll just do more work that day to make up for it.”

Pierre stood up very suddenly and now it was obvious that he was planting the inviting smile on his face, but I was too upset to care. He stalked out of the living room and I was left alone on the couch with my hands still outstretched like he was holding them still, so I quickly retracted them to my chest and tugged down my sleeves. I didn’t want to know what my cheek looked like.

There were some clinking sounds from the kitchen and he returned a few moments later with the stems of two wine glasses in either hand, making my stomach lurch. He wasn’t going to ask me to leave? That was awfully nice of him. He could probably tell that I just didn’t want to talk about it.

He sat down gracefully beside me, offering me the fuller cup of white wine, and I gratefully accepted it to take a few polite sips. These were the times I wanted to get drunk more than anything, which I was pretty positive was the definition of an alcoholic. Pierre drank from his and slammed it down on the coffee table so a bit of the clear liquid sloshed over the sides with a splash. He smiled to himself before running a hand through his hair quickly.

I watched him with wide eyes. He was definitely pissed off.

My astronomy professor stroked his chin, tapping his foot on the floor impatiently. His expression was rapidly going south and I crammed myself against the arm of the couch, busily drinking my wine. His emotions were getting volatile and he was totally unpredictable, prone to change like the wind.

I jumped when his head snapped to the left to glare at me and his face instantly softened. He cocked his head in an endearing way and his eyes flickered to my half-empty glass of wine. I got a creeping feeling that he wanted me to drink it fast for once instead of socially sipping. Inspired by his frightening gaze, I quickly downed the rest of the glass and winced as it slid down my throat.

“So…” I said, playing with my empty wine glass as the drink settled warmly in my stomach, “my makeup was that bad?”

Pierre was completely ignoring his wine. “No. My childhood trained me to accurately pinpoint a battered woman.” He drummed his fingers on the arm on his side of the couch. “And no, I won’t expand upon that. Would you like another drink, Natalie?”

Huh. Come to think of it, I didn’t remember much from when I had last had wine with Pierre. There were a few snippets my brain managed to pull back but it had been one of the worst cases of booze-influenced amnesia I ever experienced. But if he was trying to attack me he would’ve done it already.

I shrugged and noticed my shoulders felt heavy. Already? I’d hardly drunk a thing. Had I really screwed myself up when I went to the party at Luke’s house?

Pierre picked up his wine glass that had left a ring on the coffee table. He took a small sip and I tried to focus on him but my vision shifted into fifty different pictures. I blearily slouched over my lap, confused. It was only one glass I had _just_ drunk. Surely my stomach and liver hadn’t processed it already.

I clutched my head, grimacing. “Oh, no.”

“We really must remedy your incompatibility with wine.”

“…Ugh,” I groaned, “where do you get this stuff?”

“Trade secret.”

My ears started ringing and I worried I was going to throw up. I tried to stand up and make my way to the bathroom only to collapse on the floor with a muffled yelp two feet from the couch. My eyelids were getting harder to keep open and they fluttered open and shut, protecting me from the hazy and distorted images my eyes were bringing. Shit, I’d never been this kind of drunk before.

Footsteps on the floor felt like they were shattering my sensitive eardrums. I squeezed my eyes shut as Pierre hooked his hands underneath my armpits to lift me from the floor and managed to support my completely languid body in his arms like he’d done it a hundred times. I lazily rested my head on his shoulder and sighed softly as we slowly ascended the stairs. Mmm, more sleep.

There were black spots in my vision by the time Pierre entered his bedroom. I thought I could feel him stroking my hair and murmuring something in my ear but I was so dizzy that I didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t. I slipped away from him when he lay me down on the bed, only able to keep one eyelid half open. All I could see was his vague outline.

“I have a bit of business to attend to,” he said, idly beginning to unbutton my jeans. “You seem tired, Natalie. Why don’t you sleep here this evening? I’m beginning to like your company.”

I blinked one eye at a time back at him. My brain had been slowed to a groggy halt and I couldn’t even lift my hips when Pierre pulled off my jeans. He moved me to the end of the bed so he could stand between my naked knees and moved on to removing my thick hoodie. I whimpered when my wrists had to bend to fit out of the thing and he shushed me like a patient and doting parent.

For the second time in a week, Pierre changed me while I was nearly unconscious. There were a few times his touch lingered but I was almost jolted awake when I felt soft lips kiss my calves. I flinched when his hand gripped the underside of my thigh to give him better access to my legs.

“Je vais d'abord prendre ma revanche,” Pierre muttered before finishing changing me.

The last confusing image I saw was Pierre leaving the room with something sticking out of his back pocket. Darkness swallowed me.


	13. My head is bloody, but unbowed.

My heart was beating in the back of my throat, resonating painfully in my ears. A harsh ringing preceded me achieving hazy consciousness with three-way vision cutting the bedroom into a myriad of shapes I couldn’t properly discern. There weren’t a lot of colors for me to take in but the dark shades were hard to process and made the throbbing in my mouth intensify tenfold. I hiccupped.

The bed shifted behind me but I was too dazed to care very much. The bathroom was too far away and I was ready to puke up whatever I had drunk the night before. Why the hell couldn’t I remember anymore? I wasn’t known for being that much of a lightweight and I should’ve built up a good tolerance to alcohol after all the parties I went to. All my nervousness was probably making me sick.

Fingers gently gathered my hair and it was twisted around a wrist before a hand pressed to the back of my head and urged me toward the edge of the bed. To my relief, there was a garbage can waiting but I couldn’t reach it with my weakened arms. The person leaned over me to pick up the can and angled my chin properly to keep me from spilling any vomit on the floor. I hiccupped again and my stomach lurched painfully, ejecting the gross mess of poison.

The room was still very dark so the night wasn’t even over yet. I would probably wake once or twice more to puke before I felt good enough to sleep well. That was usual how vomiting after drinking too much worked for me: a few sessions in the bathroom were enough to soothe my stomach.

But the horrible feeling didn’t fade in the slightest when I finally stopped. My lips were numb and I couldn’t even spit out the puke still sitting in my mouth, which only served to make my nausea worse. Trembling, I weakly collapsed beside my bedmate again and took shallow, rattling breaths. Holy shit. It felt like I was on the brink of death. Every part of me was cold.

The person released my hair and tenderly combed their fingers through it to loosen the knots before rising from the bed and walking around the bed to retrieve the garbage can. I couldn’t… remember… who was I with? Was it Luke? Maybe I had gone home with some other random guy.

Whoever it was, they disappeared into the bathroom with the garbage can and I heard the toilet flush. I shuddered miserably with the terrifying knowledge that none of my limbs would move—even twitching a damn finger was impossible. I was lying on my stomach with my face turned toward the bathroom in a pool of my own sweat like some kind of animal. My teeth chattered. Was I going to die?

The shadow reemerged but I’d wasted the rest of my strength. I closed my eyes as they grasped my chin to tilt my face forward and wiped away the leftover vomit. It was a huge relief. They pulled open my jaw with little effort, because I wasn’t really in a position to bite, and wiped the inside of my mouth almost entirely clean. My tongue was the only muscle capable of moving and I savored a mint they slipped between my lips, pushing it around my mouth to get rid of the bad taste.

Then the sheets were pulled back and I mewled in displeasure upon being exposed to the cold air, feeling it tug on my skin and instantly raise goosebumps. The stranger laughed to himself and I was lifted off the bed into distinctly male arms, curled against his chest like a sleeping baby. I heard the sheets being yanked off the bed before I was set back down on a dry but naked mattress.

A drawer opened and I heard a distorted voice speak. My ears still hurt.

“I’ve changed you twice already, Natalie,” he crooned. “If you sweat any more, I may have to bring you to the hospital.” The drawer shut and he laughed again like it was a joke.

The bed creaked with added weight and I was vaguely aware of the man kneeling beside me. The name was being shredded through a filter caused by the alcohol; I couldn’t for the life of me pinpoint the voice even though it made my heart beat in my throat again. He turned me on my back and shimmied my pants off my hips to pull on a pair of shorts instead. When I blearily opened my eyes to try to discern his appearance he was suddenly straddling my hips and unbuttoning my shirt.

If it were possible, the cold air got even worse when the shirt fell apart across my torso. I whimpered but my muscles still didn’t respond and the man shushed me. His hand slid around my bare back to hold me so he could get the shirt off me and add that to the pile on the floor. I closed my eyes and nuzzled into his chest without really thinking. His cologne smelled amazing.

And the man hesitated with both of his arms wrapped around my bare spine and my own arms hanging limply at my sides. I sighed into the warmth of his chest and began to doze off…

One of his hands rose to hold the back of my head to his chest and I felt his head curled over mine protectively. “Soon you will be mine, Natalie. I will cut down anyone who vandalizes my property.”

I passed out again and the memories were gone in a wisp of expensive wine.

_“…Natalie…”_

My fingers twitched beside my head. I felt like I’d been hit by a train.

_“…Natalie… wake up…”_

There was a lot of static in my mind, as if I was a poorly tuned television. My brow furrowed together in irritation and I kept my eyes stubbornly shut. No waking. Not yet.

A hand touched my wrist and I was jolted awake with a wild gasp, promptly rolling over on my side to face the offender. My shoulders trembled when I saw Pierre standing serenely beside my bed with his head cocked curiously and hand still outstretched toward the spot my own hand had been. He was wearing black flannel pajama pants and a grey t-shirt.

Shit! Had I really passed out again?!

I groaned and flopped onto my stomach which only served to boil fresh nausea in my gut. My body felt kind of cold and shaky like I had the flu or something instead of a regular hangover. I buried my face deeper into my pillow when another gruesome wave of nausea rippled through me, begging for a visit to the bathroom. There was no way I would risk rolling out of bed with Pierre a foot away.

“You’re becoming my hotel,” I said sourly into the pillow.

Pierre hesitated before he replied like he was waiting for me to mention something. “Yes, it does appear that way. Did you sleep well enough last night, Natalie?”

I shrugged. “Good question. All I remember is…” I raised my head and blearily looked up at him, squinting against the morning light. “Well, everything with Luke, and coming here to see you for astronomy, and once again losing my shit after a glass of wine. Sorry, my ‘stuff’ after a glass of wine. Did I really only have one last night or is my memory foggy?”

“You had several but managed to change your own clothing this time.” Pierre smiled but his eyes looked dark. “It seems we don’t accomplish much in the way of scientific progress together.”

“Yeah… sorry. I should probably lay off the wine when I come over here unless you want me to keep passing out and sleeping in your spare room.”

“I don’t mind,” he murmured.

My spine prickled and I began to feel very vulnerable lying in his bed in his house wearing his clothes. Was I making a mistake? How did I know I could trust him? It was probably because of his very attractive appearance and the way he was so self-assured about everything and his intelligence and how he brought me wine and watched me while I watched the television.

That was probably why. A whole bunch of stupid, shallow reasons.

A loud vibration on the nightstand roused Pierre’s attention faster than mine and he snatched up my cell phone before I could. To my surprise, he looked at the caller ID before handing it off to me. He sat beside my legs on the bed and didn’t look away when I answered the call.

“Natalie?!” cried mom’s terrified voice. “Natalie, where are you?!”

All that came out were a few aimless stutters. Mom started harshly berating me and demanding to know where I was when Pierre rolled his eyes and took the phone away, clearing his voice before fixating a smile on his face.

“This is Dr. Pierre Arthur Holt,” he said smoothly. “Am I speaking with Mrs. Samantha Rivera?”

I propped myself up on my elbow, mystified. How did he know my mother’s new last name? I kept my dad’s because I wasn’t comfortable being close to Ralph that way but I didn’t think it would be visible on the school’s records. That kind of thing was pushed back away from grades and schedules and bills. Mom’s name would be hidden amongst financial aid records and whatnot.

Pierre rose from the bed and began to soothe my mother, pausing for long periods of time to listen to her loud and panicked questions. I could only watch him in awe as he strolled casually around the room like there wasn’t a berserk middle-aged woman shrieking in his ear. At one point he blinked in surprise and burst into laughter, blue eyes briefly flickering to me.

Nearly half an hour had passed before he offered me the phone again. I narrowed my eyes at him and expected the worst from mom when I pressed the phone to my ear.

“Who is _that_?” she whispered in a conspiratorial tone. “Is that where you’ve been going, Natalie? For goodness sakes, you’re 19 years old; I don’t mind if you sleep at your boyfriend’s house! He sounds so very attractive, too—your astronomy professor, right?” She giggled. “Oooh, you’re a chip off the old block for sure! I can’t wait to tell Ralph.”

“He is not my boyfriend!” I hissed, turning away from Pierre in embarrassment. “Did you say anything stupid while you two were talking? He was only helping me out and nothing happened.”

“My Natalie dating a doctor! I never thought I’d see the day!” She called loudly for Ralph, totally ignoring my demands for answers. “I’m putting Ralph on the line so you can tell him about your new catch, sweetie! Ralph! Ralph, get out here! Natty found—”

Furious, I hung up on her and threw my phone down on the mattress, angrily crossing my arms over my chest. Pierre was sitting next to my legs again and peered over his shoulder curiously at my phone before looking to me with an eyebrow raised. What the hell was he looking at?! I wasn’t the one having long, apparently funny discussions with my lunatic of a mother.

“She wasn’t inquiring about Luke,” Pierre said. “Your sister has apparently kept that a secret for some reason or another. A local girl disappeared last night while you and I were asleep.”

My shoulders loosened. “Are you serious?”

“Of course I’m serious.” He shook his head sadly and hung it to hide his face. “Miranda Kemp.”

My eyes widened. Miranda? Miranda had gone missing?

I leaned toward him, covering my mouth with my hand. “Seriously? How do they know she didn’t just run away from her family or something? Were there signs of a break-in?”

Pierre’s eyes met mine and he looked away quickly, like he couldn’t imagine anything worse than her vanishing. “No, she was taken from the street. The police believe she’s already dead.”

“Miranda is dead?”

“Two severed hands were discovered in Luke Higgins’s bedroom an hour ago.” He touched my knee and I shivered. “I’m so sorry, Natalie.”

No way. Miranda had not been kidnapped and murdered overnight while I was sleeping off a hangover. I sunk back down into bed and kept my hand over my mouth as tears brimmed in my eyes. Oh, no. She couldn’t possibly be… whoever had taken her probably wanted to send a message. She would come home and everything would be fine. Those kinds of things didn’t happen in my town.

But recent events had made me realize anything could happen. Your childhood friends can turn on you in the worst of ways; your little brat of a sister could be a hero; you could be a suppressed genius; or you could wind up in a really complicated situation with your 28 year old astronomy professor.

God, life was so fucking scary. Everything could change in an instant.

Pierre turned away from me to leave and I instinctively grabbed his arm, now crying uncontrollably. A strange emotion flashed in his eyes when I touched him but he allowed me to throw my arms around his neck to cry into his shoulder. My wrists hurt from grabbing the back of his shirt and my cheek stung from pressing it to his scratchy neck but I didn’t care. I was scared and my foundation had crumbled: life was precious and it could be ripped away from you with no warning.

Soon his arms were wrapped around my back and he was holding me tightly while I cried about everything: Luke, Sophie rescuing me and how I felt like a shitty older sister, Amanda being on the other side of the country, Miranda. I couldn’t control myself if I tried. The dam had finally burst.

Pierre stroked my hair. “Shh, mon chouchou. Shh.”

I didn’t understand a damn word he was saying when he broke out the French but it found it comforting. The language was so soft and gentle instead of jarring and familiar like English. I slumped against him after a few more minutes as my crying tapered down to sniffles and he was humming something quietly. From the way the notes rose and fell, it was a lullaby.

My cell phone vibrated again, much to my irritation. Pierre held me with one arm and leaned back to pick it up, examining the texter before turning the phone to face me.

_It’s Luke. We need to talk._


	14. Could frame they fearful symmetry?

_Luke Higgins. The name Natalie whispered vaguely in my arms tore my memories from the previous night free, and I quietly reminisced on my sweet revenge…_

The doors to Washington University’s gymnasium flung open and a myriad of young women in tight, tempting shorts spilled into the cold night, laughing to one another and chattering avidly. Each of them had their perfectly pressed hair pulled into ponytails or, in the case of several, cut short enough to keep it from distracting them during their practice. Volleyball players—my least favorite variety of athlete.

I sat silently in my vehicle at the other end of the parking lot, scanning the group for the particular female I wanted. A browse on the school website had drawn up several pictures of her posing for photos after winning a volleyball game, flashing her teeth like a rabid dog when she smiled.

The most tortuous form of revenge was to destroy the boy’s current lover first. My fingers twitched toward the box of cigarettes hidden in my glove compartment but my desire to extinguish life was a far greater hunger. Luke Higgins would pay for his grievous misstep. He had marked Natalie; trying to slip her from my grasp, and such an affront could not be taken lightly. I would take from him in turn.

I glared across the group of women with growing animosity until my eyes fell upon Miranda Kemp waving heartily to her friends as she walked toward her Volkswagen. Her legs were long with a mottled tan that I could discern was unnatural even in the pressing darkness, but she was otherwise very appealing. I watched her slide into the driver’s seat of her car and answer a text message before she started her engine and left the parking lot.

My homicidal impulse did not waver as I followed Miranda through the town and remained a comfortable distance behind her. I tapped my fingers on my steering wheel at red lights, strongly considering smashing my vehicle into the back of hers to cleanly snap her neck.

No, I would make Mr. Higgins’s woman _suffer_ first. A death as swift as a car crash would be far too generous to suit my strict standards of eviscerating rivals. I had intended on adding his corpse to my swamp but hesitated for a bit longer to lure Natalie closer and ensure she would not question the questionable circumstances. Slaughtering Miranda Kemp like a pig would sate my appetite.

Miss Kemp parked her car down the street from a seedy bar. She locked the small vehicle and proceeded on her way across the cracked sidewalk to slip inside without hesitation, as if a middle-class woman belonged in such a place. I glanced around to be sure the coast was clear and settled back to wait for her to emerge stumbling about drunkenly. I could not risk giving myself away and pursuing her inside the building. Any number of people could have pinpointed my appearance.

Thankfully, Natalie was unconscious in my bed, hidden away from competitors as she should be. The pills in her wine were a stronger dose than I had administered on our first evening together, because I could not risk her awakening to realize I had left. Retrograde amnesia would pacify her and the profuse vomiting she would undoubtedly experience would contribute to her memory loss.

A pattern would emerge and Natalie would undoubtedly notice repeatedly fainting after drinking a simple glass of wine. My ploy would only work several more times before it became useless and Miss Taylor refused to accept drinks from me. She was rather demure and submissive, but I had learned that even the most malleable victims had an established break point.

Miranda emerged from the bar two hours later with a wide and bewildered smile on her face. She swayed toward her car, fumbling with her keys but now wearing a short black dress that was not an infinite improvement on her sports uniform. I checked that there were no eyes watching us and got out of my car in a smooth motion to cross the street toward her while she was distracted.

Her blue eyes hazily looked into mine as I reached out to cover her mouth with my hand, easily restraining her when she attempted to flee. Miranda screamed into my palm and grappled desperately with my fingers so I promptly turned to smash her head against the hood of her car. She went limp.

I threw the unconscious woman over my shoulder and whistled merrily on the brief walk back to my own car, pocketing her keys. It would be better if the authorities never found them.

My favorite incompetent desk clerk was playing a game on his cell phone and granted me a room key without so much as glancing at Miranda. It was a key component of my rouse—he would never look at the woman’s face and did not truly know if I was carrying the same one each time. Conversely, my wife excuse could be read as a man covering up lengthy and expensive affairs with prostitutes.

This female was a special circumstance.

I carelessly dropped Miranda on the floor when the bedroom door was shut and locked. She moaned softly, already rousing from her stupor, and I pulled down the blinds to prevent any prying eyes from watching our evening. I had brought along my essential supplies and nothing more. Restraining her was not important for what I had prepared. I would tolerate being touched for one night.

She struggled to push herself off the floor and I viciously kicked in the ribs. Miranda could only gasp in shock and collapse again as I placed my foot on her head and slowly ground my heel into her temple, hands in my pockets. I smiled down at her cringe and leaned my weight on her skull to stomp on her hand when she attempted to grab my ankle. Her body shuddered violently and a shrill scream would have given me away, but her cheeks were crushed together.

“Your little boyfriend made a wrong move,” I said, pressing my shoe with sadistic weight on her fracturing hand. “He’s damaged my Natalie, and I don’t like to share.”

Miss Kemp’s voice filtered through her lips in a weak sound of confusion. I knelt on top of her and grabbed the collar of her dress to draw her bewildered and bloody head from the floor, though it lolled lazily to the side. I’d been a bit too rough with her already. Irreversible brain damage, perhaps.

Blood seeped from the corner of her mouth but she managed to speak. “Luke… wouldn’t…”

I shook her violently until the fabric of the dress began to tear. “Would he, wouldn’t he; it’s all a very philosophical discussion to be held on another day, Miranda.”

“…Natalie… is a… freak…” she whispered. “…Liar… I hope… she dies…”

I grabbed Miranda’s chin, forcing her to meet my eyes. I was trembling.

“Take that back,” I hissed.

“I… hate her… I hope… Luke kills her…”

“ _Take it back_.”

She grinned, but her lips could only pull back to reveal the tips of her bloody teeth. Her eyelids fluttered. “I hope… Natalie Taylor… dies…”

The knife was in my hand before I registered what I had done. I reached into Miranda’s mouth, ignoring her feeble bites, and yanked her tongue from between her teeth so it was in my full view. Rage only served to make my movements less smooth and accurate, and my first attempt at slicing off the girl’s tongue nearly succeeded in removing one of my own fingers. She was laughing at me.

I did not permit women to make me a point of amusement.

The blade cut clean through Miss Kemp’s tongue and I held the bloody muscle for a brief moment as more blood spewed from the point of severance to pool in her mouth. She began to convulse and gag, struggling to free herself from between my knees, and I stuffed her tongue back from whence it came. I forced her jaw closed to keep her quiet as she began to aspirate on her own blood—death was imminent. Her eyes rolled back in her head, tears streaming freely down her cheeks.

“Now you took it back,” I whispered, smearing my bloody hands across her face.

I covered Miranda’s mouth with several strips of duct tape to hasten along her death and seized her left wrist. She was growing paler by the moment but seemed to flush with color when I pinned her hand to the floor and raised the knife high enough for her to see. I grinned beatifically and brought down the blade, dislocating the girl’s hand from her forearm just past her wrist.

Cutting her wrists themselves free would be nonsensical. The entire hand made much more sense and would frighten and confuse the little boyfriend all that much more.

Never before had I seen so much gore, even on the night I sliced open Hannah’s stomach. Miranda lay cold and lifeless below me but the stumps continued to bleed profusely. I turned the knife in my grasp to stab her through the left cheek, the same place Luke had defiled my Natalie, and patted the corpse with her own severed hand as blood flowed from her mouth.

“You’re leaving a mess,” I chastised. I grasped her by the hair and slammed her head on the floor several times, still incomparably angry. “And you already died on me. Wretch.”

The hands would not remain fresh for long. I rose from Miranda and stomped on her already severely disfigured face for good measure, furious that an entire night of torture had ended so quickly. I was slow to feel strong emotion—I hardly felt a stirring of it within me—but I could not stand idly by while she spewed vitriol regarding something that belonged to me. It was unforgivable.

The frenzied murder made cleaning a bit of a nightmare, even for myself. I trembled as I tightly rolled Miranda’s corpse into the blanket, still roiling with violent impulses, and set to the task of wiping each droplet of blood from the carpeting. I’d flung her essence every which way in my haste to dispatch her and my normally obsessive personality was rather put off by the work involved.

But I dutifully performed my work and scanned the room for any mistakes I may have made before leaving with Miranda in my arms. Her face had been bludgeoned beyond recognition so I tenderly held the back of her head as I left the hotel without a word from the desk attendant.

I threw the body into the back seat drove to my next destination: Luke Higgins’s home. Though I dearly wished to slit his throat while he was asleep, I would delight in his emotional turmoil much more. I hummed a familiar lullaby my mother would sing to me: Au Claire de la Lune, the melody of my many sleepless nights. Of course, she had a tendency to ruin it with her sniffling.

Luke Higgins lived in an elaborate white home with a vast garden in the front yard and tresses akin to those carved into ancient Greek temples. I parked a ways down the street and assembled the hands in a woven picnic basket I frequently brought along when purchasing wine. When they were neatly arranged together, stiff and morbidly cold, I strolled down the street and turned up the cobblestone driveway to the front door of the Higgins household.

It would have a security system, which meant I wouldn’t be able to ensure Luke would be the one to see the hands. He would learn soon enough, though. I set them on the porch and walked back to my vehicle to begin the quiet drive home. Natalie was waiting for me.

The dead young woman in my backseat was a slight issue. She would be greatly missed and the authorities would doggedly search for her body, which meant I would have to lie low and deny myself my favorite pastime until they stopped sniffing. It would be too dangerous luring vagrants. Miranda’s corpse would join the others in my private disposal site, and the police would never know.

Thus, I watched another female body sink into the murky depths of the swamp that evening before returning to my bedroom. There was hardly time to continue playing games with Natalie.

I stepped inside the dark room expecting to see her slumbering peacefully beneath the sheets only to find her lying prone on the floor, shivering violently. Hm. Perhaps I had miscalculated her dosage. Combined with the alcohol she would easily rest through the evening and part of the morning.

I approached slowly to stand beside Natalie, unbuttoning my shirt and watching fondly as her right eye opened a fraction of an inch to look at me. She was still entirely immobile and had likely collapsed from the bed due to nausea or a random fit, not her own free will. My appetite was piqued.

“I’m already very tired of waiting, Miss Taylor,” I murmured. She preferred gentler tones and was otherwise prone to leaping in fear like a paranoid prey animal. “Will I have to take you by force?”

The woman stared up at me stupidly, her mouth slightly ajar. Mmm. Tempting.

The drugs were apparently working a hair too well and my victim was covered in sweat. I lifted her languid form from the floor and very carefully changed her clothing into another set of nighttime odds and ends I had in my upper drawer. Her hazy blue eyes roamed across the ceiling during the process and when I had finished and was preparing to tuck her beneath the sheets, she hiccupped.

“So demanding,” I sighed, picking up my wastebasket. “Come here. I can’t have you inhaling your own vomit. How will I explain such a thing to your mother?”

Natalie hiccupped again. Her hips bones taunted me beneath the edge of a green dress shirt.

I grasped her hair to hold her forward so she could vomit and performed that same task several times, all the while cleaning her mouth and offering her a mint. She would certainly worry if she woke to the taste of vomit but no memory of doing such.

She had settled into relative silence until I was woken for the third time by her hiccups yet again, and I lazily leaned across her body to prepare the garbage can…


	15. Beyond this place of wrath and tears

The tear-blurred text message was only visible for a second longer. I hadn’t even reached for my phone and Pierre had it clenched in his hand with the screen facing his palm, eyes vacant like he’d been thinking deeply. He set it on the nightstand without saying a word and I frowned up at him before turning to try and retrieve it. I didn’t want Luke to think I was involved in Miranda’s disappearance.

Pierre hugged me so tightly to his chest that the air whooshed out of my lungs in one painful stroke. I’d turned completely in his arms so they were wrapped firmly around my stomach, leaving me awkwardly draping over them, blinking furiously. Ow. I could barely move my diaphragm to breathe properly.

Then I felt his warm breath on my ear and my breathing was the least of my concerns.

“Your friend is likely to be very upset,” Pierre murmured. “It’s better to deal with him when his emotions have settled and the dust is cleared.”

That was a valid point. I shrugged weakly and wondered why I had put myself in such a compromising position. Pierre hadn’t pulled me into his lap or anything but I could practically feel his lips on the outer edge of my ear when he spoke, and I was just limply hanging over his arms. I glanced down at his forearms that were contoured with muscle and my cheeks flooded with heat.

“So, uh, what’d you talk to my mother about?” I squeaked when his hard chest pressed into my back.

“Tsk tsk, it would be rude of me to tell you.”

“…Fine, I’ll just make mom tell me when I go home.”

In a fluid motion I was sitting between Pierre’s legs at the edge of the bed and his chin was resting on my shoulder. He was leaning over me, weighing me down and holding me tightly around my midsection. It was suffocating and frightening like I was trapped underneath a heavy blanket. His grip tightened and I instinctively grasped his arms to pull them forward and give myself room to breathe.

Pierre’s arms immediately withdrew but it was only to grab my hands and pin them to my thighs. From the way he moved it was reflexive, like when doctors hit your knee with a rubber hammer to make you kick. I could hear his teeth grinding irately in my ear.

My cell phone started vibrating again. Pierre slid my palms to the insides of my thighs while I stared at my phone, slightly terrified. I could finally breathe normally but now I couldn’t move an inch: his legs held me firmly in place. My head was swimming but I didn’t think it was from my hangover.

_He’s only being… um… comforting?_

Even my constantly rationalizing inner thoughts were drawing blanks to explain Dr. Holt’s behavior. He was always standing or sitting several feet away, just enough to stay outside of my personal bubble and in the green zone. He never tried to invade it unless I was completely wasted and couldn’t change my own clothes. It surprised me—his proximity felt very unprovoked; impatient and aggressive.

I wasn’t _complaining_ , per se, but nonetheless very confused. I’d done very little to show him how brainy I was and didn’t think I had much else that made me appealing to someone like Dr. Holt.

“Feeling better already?” he asked.

All I could manage was a nod. The effects of the wine were fading away kind of quickly thanks to having my astronomy professor’s minty breath on my neck. He squeezed my hands with his and his fingertips pressed into the soft flesh inside my thighs, making me shiver slightly. Shit, shit shit. I was really becoming a fan of using that word because I seemed to be constantly—

My teeth snapped together audibly when Pierre’s soft lips touched the edge of my jaw in a smooth, effortless way that was indescribable. I would’ve melted if I wasn’t so damn stiff and nervous, but my worries had to be expressed somehow and I started shaking terribly. I felt him smile into my skin.

“You’re trembling.”

“Sorry,” I muttered, eyes very wide and staring at my phone like it was going to save me from making a fool of myself.

Pierre kissed the edge of my throat and his mouth lingered. “Mr. Higgins is undoubtedly calling you again.”

“Yeah… probably…”

He released one of my hands and slowly slid his palm up my arm across the baggy sleeves of the dress shirt and over the hill of my shoulder. He squeezed once and gently opened the first button of the shirt to loosen it in the arms. I jumped a bit when he tugged down the sleeve to expose my shoulder and the first hint of my collar bone.

His fingers curled around my bicep. “Your mother asked if we were together.”

“Oh,” I faltered. “That’s… neat.”

“Do you remember what I told you?” he said, speaking into my jaw.

I nodded jerkily. Yes, I knew he didn’t do the relationship thing. He’d mentioned it a few times.

Pierre’s mouth left a trail along my collar bone in a perfect line and his lips traveled to my shoulder, only lightly kissing along the way instead of pulling or biting. The hair on his face scratched a bit but it wasn’t a bad type of pain. He tugged the lobe of my ear with his lips and my free hand suddenly left my lap to grip his thigh in a feeble attempt to steady myself.

He took a sharp breath and grabbed my hand from his leg to pin it back to my thigh, putting me in the same position from earlier. He forced our hands to the insides of my thighs and pushed his legs against mine to close our hands within my legs, rendering them immobile.

“We mustn’t touch, Natalie,” he purred into my ear.

“Sorry!”

The doorbell pealed downstairs.

Pierre paused in the midst of kissing my neck and for a moment the only sound was my poorly stifled heavy breathing. I swallowed and felt the rise of my throat press his wet lips closer to my skin. It was a unique form of torture. Did he know what he was doing to me? He had to.

He made an irritated growling sound when the doorbell rang again and hooked his hands under my armpits to hoist me to my feet. When he set me down on the floor I swayed but Pierre caught me before I collapsed on the ground. He turned and laid me on the bed again while I rubbed my throbbing forehead and when I opened my eyes, he was leaning over me.

A lean index finger touched my lips with gentle but intimidating pressure. He was smiling.

“Stay very quiet, Natalie,” he whispered. “No sneaking downstairs this time.”

I nodded spastically, transfixed by his deep blue eyes. Mine were lighter; greyish like my dad’s were and I had never seen irises that almost looked sapphire. Pierre swiftly kissed my forehead in another unexpected gesture and disappeared from the room.

The door opened downstairs and I heard him talking to someone but I remained perfectly still on the bed, staring at the ceiling. The alcohol had to be making me hallucinate. Dr. Holt wasn’t coming on to me and… no, I was going crazy. I reached up to touch my neck, closing my eyes and guiltily remembering how good his mouth felt on my skin. I’d never been kissed like that before.

My hand flew to my mouth. Would he kiss me on the lips? No, everything was just a fluke. We were both caught up in the moment and everything would be normal when he came back upstairs.

But my flurried thoughts wouldn’t rest. I kept turning over different possibilities in my mind while two familiar voices talked quietly near the door. Everything that happened was flooding my head and I was too busy trying to sort each second to care about who had come to see Dr. Holt. I chewed on my lower lip, reminiscing over his finger resting feather light on my lips to keep me quiet…

I frowned. When he had pulled his hand away to walk downstairs and greet the guest, I could’ve sworn I caught a strange detail about Pierre’s fingertip. It looked smooth and darker than the rest of his finger. It wasn’t something you would catch very easily and I doubted most people would think to look.

My cell phone started vibrating again and I sat up to answer it, feeling much better after picking apart every move Pierre had made. I wiped away the last dried streaks of tears from my face and sniffled before unlocking my phone to check my messages.

Luke had sent me ten texts of varying lengths. The first few were fairly short but he gradually grew more irritated until I was reading a message in all caps demanding I meet with him and explain what happened to Miranda. I had no goddamn idea, considering I’d been through a black-out night after a glass of wine. Why was he implicating me in her disappearance? I wasn’t the type to seek revenge, and I definitely didn’t have it in me to cut someone’s hands off.

Feet on the stairs roused my attention and I glanced over my shoulder two seconds before Pierre entered the room with a very unhappy expression on his face. He plucked my phone from my fingers and leaned over to put his hands on my shoulders. I was very conscious of his rough fingertips.

“There are two police officers here,” he said. “Now, you are not 21 so we will forget about your sips of wine last night. You are recovering from an illness… a stomach bug will suffice. You arrived last night at six o’clock to study as usual and were stricken with nausea, leading me to caring for you throughout the evening. You recently woke this morning beside me in this bed.”

My heart was racing. The police had already come to find me.

Tears brimmed in my eyes and but I nodded again, obedient as always. Pierre tutted quietly and wiped away a few traitorous droplets with his thumbs.

“I’m a bad liar,” I admitted.

“Follow my lead. I’m quite capable.”

He helped me back underneath the covers and I slumped down to look sicker. It wasn’t too difficult because I felt like garbage for lying to officers of the law, but it would’ve been bad if they found out I had been home the previous night because I was too drunk to move.

Pierre swung back into the hallway casually and gestured toward the bottom of the stairs. I pulled the covers up to my chin and watched a middle-aged man and a young woman walk into the bedroom, both wearing suits rather than uniforms. They were important. The man had thinning brown hair and a bit of a gut and the woman was kind of mousy-looking, with wiry brown hair pulled in a ponytail and a notebook in her hands. She stood beside the male officer at the foot of the bed.

Dr. Holt returned to stand beside me with his hands on his hips. “Natalie, the gentleman’s name is Officer Daniels and the gentlewoman is an intern, Miss Lowell.” He reached out to press the back of his hand to my forehead and sighed. “Still so warm. I’ve already called her mother, but we aren’t sure if she should go home quite yet.”

“Yes, we were already in touch with Mrs. Rivera,” Officer Daniels said offhandedly. “We understand you were ill yesterday evening, Miss Taylor.”

I nodded. “Yeah, it hit me in the middle of doing my homework with Dr. Holt. He was very understand and took care of me throughout the night so I didn’t suffer too much. I was shocked to hear about Miranda this morning—what a terrible tragedy.”

“It is.” Officer Daniels fixated a cold stare on me. “The deceased’s boyfriend, Luke Higgins, told us the two of you exchanged words yesterday. Can you confirm this?”

My spine prickled and Pierre shifted beside me.

“Yes,” I said. “We did.”

“He told us you invited him to your home and suddenly became very violent, threatening to bring harm to him or his family if he refused to—”

“What?!” I exclaimed. “No, no, you have it all wrong! Talk to my sister, Phoebe Taylor; she was there and caught him trying to force himself on me in my bedroom!” I leaned forward and quickly drew back my sleeves to expose my wrists, which were now an ugly greenish yellow. “Do you think I could’ve gotten this from trying to make _him_ do anything? He’s been texting me, too!”

The woman, Miss Lowell, pointed her pen at Pierre. “Or did Mr. Holt do that?”

Before he could respond I turned my rage in her direction, affronted that I was being accused of attempted rape. I wasn’t even five and a half feet tall and I weighed 125 pounds. How in the hell did they think I coerced Luke, the captain of the basketball team, into having sex with me?!

“That’s Doctor Holt,” I hissed, “and no, he didn’t. Are you going to trust my sister and I or take the word of a kid who’s just understandably upset that something happened to his girlfriend? I was here last night vomiting profusely and Dr. Holt was here with me. I have a bunch of crazy texts from Luke if you want to read them but otherwise, I can’t help you very much.”

They asked a few more questions and got my phone number before they left, promising to keep in touch. Pierre escorted them out and I hid beneath the covers again, humiliated by my ‘Doctor Holt’ outburst. I wasn’t thinking clearly at all anymore. Pierre was driving me crazy.

But he acted like nothing ever happened. I eventually got out of bed and took a shower before going home to my mother’s teasing and whispers to Ralph, puzzled by Dr. Holt. He’d… kissed me all over my neck and I had honestly been worried about how far it might’ve gone. Maybe it was something to forget about and I needed to stop anguishing over every little thing he did.

I lay across my bed and found myself tracing the lines in my ceiling like I had at Pierre’s house. Yeah… I was starting to think more than what was healthy. It was better to let everything fall into place and trust Dr. Holt to make the right decisions. After all, he was always two steps ahead of everyone else.


	16. Looms but the horror of the shade,

A tense two weeks of investigations passed before I was able to relax. The police were sniffing around town like trained dogs trying to either find Miranda’s body or concrete evidence that she had disappeared forever. I didn’t know how they would do either and I didn’t care to find out. If the person she had run into took the time to cut off her hands, I highly doubted she would be coming home.

Luke never texted me again. I assumed the police had read the messages and advised him to cut it out or he got in trouble for threatening me over a phone. Either way, I was released from his constant harassment and didn’t glance over my shoulder in paranoia every time I walked outside.

Even better, Amanda was due to come home in a week and I only had two more weeks left before the spring semester of college began. My best friend would be back to pal around with me and I could finally bounce my feelings off her in person, and maybe even mention Pierre by name. She’d probably laugh and shake her head at me while I tried to justify being painfully attracted to him.

It still felt like a bad idea, though. Dr. Holt had kind of pulled away from me ever since the last night I had passed out in a wine-stricken stupor on his floor. I politely did my astronomy work and he politely corrected it (which consisted of him mostly agreeing with me) and I had hard time believing he had ever kissed my neck. Sometimes I closed my eyes at night and imagined he was doing it all over again, which was both embarrassing and totally against my character.

So I tried to ignore the screaming, riling emotions in me and looked elsewhere in the faces of the many young men around me. It wasn’t easy and I was prone to making unfair comparisons. Not everyone could be Pierre Holt—in fact, no one could.

He was intelligent and perceiving, constantly keeping a playful retort on the tip of his tongue and a glass of wine in his right hand. There was simply no way to replace him and every night I went to his home to learn about stars and space I worried I would meet another woman walking down the stairs in one of his dress shirts. I already knew I’d run out of the house crying as always.

Cognizant of this inherent weakness of mine, I kept busy. I wrenched both Luke and Pierre from my heart for as long as I could bear, and the prior turned out to be fairly easy to forget, considering the transgressions he’d committed. But Pierre always lingered in the back of my head. I would be cross-country skiing with the wind in my hair and the beautiful, flawless spans of mountains before me and if I didn’t stop myself, everything would turn to those blue eyes.

It wasn’t really _me_ to pine over a guy. I’d been in love with Luke for years and my affection had waned and waxed but never consumed me. Pierre was different somehow. My attraction to him had hit hard and fast instead of slowly creeping up on me.

After a video chat with Amanda on Tuesday afternoon, I drove to Pierre’s house as always. Darkness crawled through the woods while I drove through the thick lines of dead trees to his home at the end of the road, resting like a permanent fixture in the background. I hopped out of my car with my books.

When I knocked on the door, he didn’t answer for several minutes. I wouldn’t have minded on a warmer day but it was bitterly cold and snow was starting to come down. I excitedly realized it might mean I would have to stay at his house again but quickly pushed the emotion away to keep from being disappointed. I knocked again and he still didn’t arrive, so I invited myself inside.

It was quiet and oddly cold. I shut the door carefully and dropped my backpack alongside it as always, brow furrowed. Huh. Usually it was awfully warm and fairly inviting. I’d learned soon enough that Dr. Holt wasn’t the type to emotionally bond with people. Hell, the guy hated being touched.

“Pierre?” I called. “Are you in here?”

No response. I puckered my lips and took off my shoes to head to the bathroom before going to seek out my astronomy professor. My socks slid across the smooth wooden floors on my way up the stairs and I swiveled around the corner like I owned the place. It was my type of house: everything felt woodsy and quaint, except the kitchen. That had definitely been a new addition.

I did my business and washed my hands, checking out my reflection during the process. My head hurt a little because I hadn’t eaten much all day. It struck me that Dr. Holt probably had Tylenol or Advil in his medicine cabinet so I casually pulled it open to take a gander.

It was completely empty. I scowled and shut it, annoyed that he didn’t keep those kinds of things in every bathroom. There was one in his bedroom that I knew of where he probably kept pain relievers but I wasn’t sure if trespassing there would be okay. I gnawed my nails, debating if it was worth the risk.

Of course it was.

I peered into the dark hallway like a secret agent and stole along the wall to his bedroom, once again checking before dramatically leaping inside. The carpets were soft and muffled my steps as I scurried to the adjoining bathroom that was mercifully empty and rather big. There was even a full bath and he had a bunch of extra garbage bags sitting beside the toilet.

Giggling to myself for my antics, I swung open the cabinet doors.

There were a few regular things, like spare toothbrushes and toothpaste, but a bright orange bottle caught my eye. I curiously reached up to take it out and read the label in the near darkness.

  
**FLUNITRAZEPAM 3MG**

**TAKE AS DIRECTED**

I cocked my head. It looked like a halfway official prescription bottle but… there was no pharmacy listed or callback number. As far as I knew, those had to be on the label. I turned it over a few times and shook the strange pills, completely at a loss for what they were. Probably for sleeping or something.

Flunitrazepam, Flunitrazepam… it sounded familiar. Did I hear it in a PSA? Health class?

“Looking for something in particular, Miss Taylor?”

I jolted back and almost toppled over the edge of his bathtub, eyes wide with fear and shock. Pierre was standing in the doorframe of the bathroom with a menacing glow from the moon cast across his face, and his plaintive smile just made things worse. I quickly put the pills back in the cabinet and bowed my head to him like I deserved to have my head cut off.

“I am _so_ sorry!” I squeaked. “I was looking for Tylenol or something and just happened to come in here. I’m so sorry; it will never happen again. I don’t even know what those pills are so if they’re something bad or no one is supposed to know I promise I won’t say anything.”

“They’re only sleeping pills. I don’t indulge in a drug habit.”

My face burned. “Yes, I know, I’m sorry. I’ll just… go crawl into a hole somewhere.”

Pierre tilted his head to the side and raised an eyebrow. “There’s no need for that. Why don’t we begin the next lesson? I don’t keep painkillers on hand, but I’m sure a bit of wine will help.”

“I probably shouldn’t. Mom caught me drinking on Christmas so—”

“Is she not under the assumption we’re together? Surely she won’t question you sleeping here this evening. Mrs. Rivera seemed quite reasonable.”

“Well I told her a hundred times that we aren’t,” I muttered, fidgeting with the hem of my shirt. “I don’t like lying to her so I made it my New Year’s resolution to stop it.”

“A glass of wine won’t hurt anything, Natalie. Come, we have work to do.”

It had been so long since Pierre made an effort to socialize with me beyond school work that I jumped at the opportunity instead of continuing to question it. I followed him back through the house to the living room and sat in my familiar spot before realizing I had left my backpack near the door. I hurried over to get my cell phone and notebook while Pierre bustled around in the kitchen.

I rummaged around and was upset to find I had forgotten my phone at home. That wasn’t like me. I always had it on me and I could’ve sworn I threw it in before leaving. I knelt down on the floor to search through my things when I heard the clink of glass on the coffee table.

Pierre was watching me indifferently, swirling his white wine about in circles. “Something wrong, ma cherie? You’re on edge this evening.”

“No,” I said as I stood, “guess I forgot my phone. Mom’s gonna have a panic attack.”

“I’ll give her a call in the morning. Sit, relax.”

So I sat obediently on the opposite side of the couch and took small sips of my wine, hoping it would help me tolerate the drink. I’d looked online and asked a few people why it affected me so much differently than beer but the only explanations were allergies or something much more sinister. Dr. Holt definitely wasn’t the type to spike a person’s drink.

“I got stuck on a relativity question,” I said, pointing to the offending number before turning it toward Pierre. He would normally put a fair amount of space between us and read it on his own. “I tried figuring it out but I’m not sure if my math is right.”

The notebook slid back towards me and I glanced up to see Pierre sitting directly at my side, scrutinizing my paper. I nearly choked on my wine but he didn’t seem to notice. His leg pressed against mine and he took another idle sip of his wine before setting it on the coffee table.

He stroked his chin. “It is correct, and so is your answer. I’m not entirely sure how you do it.”

I shrugged sheepishly, very aware of Pierre’s body heat. Of course I could smell his cologne as well; hardly noticeable from a distance but quite apparent up close. My trepidation began to fade and the pill bottle I had discovered seemed like an asinine find. Everything was fine as always.

No, no, _no_ , everything was not fine. I drank my wine and nodded politely while Dr. Holt talked but I was having a massive panic attack inside trying to decide what his intentions were. He was attractive and the epitome of perfection but he made it clear that he didn’t date. With our age difference his only interest would have been sex and I didn’t know if I was okay with just that.

It wasn’t easy being so interested in someone and being met with cold nonchalance. He didn’t care if I liked him or not, because he was confident in himself enough to not care. He’d probably slept with plenty of beautiful women and let them touch him. He seemed repulsed by my touch.

Pierre puckered his lips as he eyed a problem, oblivious to my staring. God, he was so beautiful. I didn’t throw words like that around and I felt strange thinking that about a man but there was no other way to describe him. My eyes narrowed to compensate for my shifting vision and I took another long drink from my wine glass. Soon I would see a woman descending his stairs in one of his shirts…

My heart hurt. If only I could touch him. It was rude and disrespectful to blatantly grab at his leg but I grew more tempted as the minutes passed and my wine dwindled. Maybe he would be more receptive.

I slumped against his shoulder with my glass hanging precariously from my fingers. My head was whirling in a thousand different directions, spinning like a top gone out of control. I’d somehow gotten drunk after one measly cup of wine again and was bound to make a fool of myself. What was wrong with me? Why did I keep drinking if I knew it was going to screw me up?

_Because it means you can stay in his house for the night, and you keep hoping you’ll wake up next to him and suddenly change his mind about dating. That’s why, you damn moron._

“I’ve hardly finished reviewing your homework,” Pierre murmured.

My eyes were heavy. “That’s okay. I’m gonna go to sleep now.”

The glass was slipped from my grasp and set gently on the table so it didn’t shatter on the floor. Pierre lifted me into his arms and my head lolled on his shoulder up the stairs, eyes hardly registering a thing. I wasn’t entirely positive but I thought I could smell cigarettes faintly under his cologne.

We went to his bedroom. This time, he shut the door softly behind us instead of leaving it open to bring me to the guest room. He stroked my hair and supported my head when he laid me down on the bed like I was an infant that might accidentally snap its own neck. I smiled stupidly up at him, oddly at ease. Gee, the wine had a weird tendency to knock me right off my feet.

Pierre smiled back at me patronizingly. He was already unbuttoning my jeans. “Is something amusing you, Miss Taylor?”

This time, I wasn’t about to pass out. Warmth was spreading through me at an alarming and exhilarating rate, tickling each inch of my flesh and making me giggle like an idiot. I’d never felt so incredible before—it was like my skin had become a livewire and every small, insignificant touch was exacerbated far beyond normal. I wasn’t nervous or afraid of fainting or puking. I was euphoric.

I rolled over on my stomach and squirmed to free myself from my jeans. They were so restrictive and tight. I wanted them off before they hurt me. I pushed my face into the comforter and desperately twisted my hips to escape my pants until Pierre mercifully pulled them off.

“Thank you, _sir_ ,” I slurred.

“It is truly my pleasure. What are we to do with your shirt?”

“Take it off! It’s…” I winced and fumbled with the hem of my t-shirt. “…Tight.”

An arm wrapped under my stomach to hold me up, allowing Pierre to get my shirt off before I started feeling claustrophobic. I managed to unhook my own bra with plenty of muttering and sighed with relief when my breasts weren’t being pressed tightly to my chest anymore. Sweet freedom. Only my camisole stood between me and the outside world.

“Better?” Pierre asked.

I nodded and rolled back over to look at him again, not at all surprised by his hands on either side of my head. He smiled when I laughed but stiffened when one of my curious drunk hands reached out to touch his cheek. His blue irises looked even brighter in the darkness and my eyes were overwhelmed by the complicated facial hair pattern he wore. We were a foot apart and I was Miss Social Butterfly.

The words poured from my lips before I could stop them.

“Kiss me.”

I’d imagined he would blatantly refuse me or demand to know why I was asking such a thing of him. Dr. Holt was an upstanding guy who liked the rules for the most part, except when they involved underage drinking and having undergrad students in his house. I stared at him for a few moments and he smirked.

“I’m not very gentle,” he said.

“I don’t care,” I huffed, trying to push myself onto my elbows. “I wanna kiss you.”

“So demanding.”

Pierre poked me in the crux of my collar bone to make me flop down on the bed again and I watched with rapt attention as he unbuckled his belt. It hissed through the loops and fell with a muffled sound on the floor before being promptly joined by his shirt. I was a special kind of drunk but even through that I could admire his perfectly, pleasantly defined musculature. A hint of his Adonis belt teased me.

I reached out for him, becoming inexplicably horny. Alcohol didn’t normally have that effect upon me. I would be a lot friendlier but I never became cheap even after a ton of beer. At that moment I wanted nothing more than Dr. Holt. It burned into my bones.

Pierre crept on top of me but kept out bodies separated. His broad shoulders eclipsed the moonlight and I was plunged into further darkness, disoriented and very aroused. I blindly felt for his body and my palm settled on one of his shoulders but was soon pulled away and pinned next to my head along with the other. I whimpered impatiently. Kiss me, goddammit!

“I may not be able to stop myself,” he purred. “I have poor impulse control.”

“Lemme touch you.”

“No. If you try it again, I will be forced to punish you.”

“I wanna touch your face,” I whispered.

One of Pierre’s hands was suddenly tangled in the back of my hair and he yanked hard until I squealed in pain, thrashing around underneath him. When my mouth was still slightly open in an aggrieved hiss, he sealed his lips over mine aggressively.

It was incredible being kissed by a force of nature. He was powerful and domineering, intent on taking what he pleased. I wasn’t strong enough. Pierre grabbed my face between his hands to deepen the kiss and I allowed him without hesitation, settling for tugging on the comforter instead. My hands were getting very desperate to move; to feel skin beneath them.

I could taste blood in my mouth. I panted, struggling to breathe under his assault until he turned his attention to my neck. He pulled fiercely on my hair and I couldn’t help but squeal from the pain but god, it wasn’t a bad kind of pain to my alcohol-addled brain.

Innocently, I tried to grasp his shoulders.

A big hand closed around my jaw in the next second the other tugged back my hair, forcing me to stare straight into Pierre’s angry blue eyes. His grip was way too tight.

“Do not touch me,” he hissed. “Keep your hands—”

The peal of the doorbell interrupted him. His scowl deepened and he listed a colorful stream of curses in French before angrily releasing my face and getting out of bed. I stared after him as the alcohol finally took a cold grip on my consciousness and dragged me to sleep.


	17. And yet the menace of the years

The memories of the previous night didn’t evade me the next morning like they had on the last night I drank an innocent glass of wine with Pierre. I woke slowly but was soon staring at the ceiling with the sheets pulled up to my neck, trying to make sense of all that had happened. Fear crept along my spine like a spider with venom dripping from its fangs. If it bit, I knew I would admit the truth to myself.

The television was on downstairs as usual and the laughter reached me vaguely even in Dr. Holt’s bedroom instead of the guest room down the hall. We had slept in the same bed. I thought I would be more excited upon waking up and realizing that but all I could feel was apprehension. My mind was through letting me believe a fantastical lie. The pulsing, aggressive hangover I had been struck with was a sure sign that my paranoia was well-founded.

I’d drunk enough alcohol over the course of my high school career to know what even the worst of hangovers felt like. I’d never experienced anything like I had drinking regular old wine with Pierre. It was ungodly pain and nausea that left me trembling for hours on end, and craving something I couldn’t quite place. There were large gaps in my memory. I didn’t want to admit what was staring me in the face.

I looked toward his bathroom and noticed the door was firmly closed. He had left the bedroom a while ago to go downstairs so I knew he wasn’t in it, but he clearly didn’t want me wandering in again. I propped myself up on my elbow to stare at it. Flunitrazepam. I needed to know what it was.

Pierre didn’t tell me who had been at the door but by the time he returned I was already out cold. I’d woken up still only wearing my panties and camisole, relieved to be otherwise untouched. My lips were a bit puffy and swollen, though. I reached up to brush my fingers across them and guiltily reminisced on how he had kissed me. He was good. Too good.

I slipped out of bed into the cool morning and tried to open the bathroom door, but it was locked. I folded my arms over my chest and stepped back to will it open with my thoughts. What if there were more pills in the cabinet? Was he keeping anything else like that in his house?

“Good morning, Natalie.”

Pierre’s voice brought me paradoxical fear and excitement, a strange mesh of emotion that was impossible to process. I turned slightly to look at him and was terrified to see he was only wearing his pajama pants that hung loosely from his hips while his broad and toned chest was utterly bare. I quickly tore my eyes away and fixated them on the floor, praying for my cell phone to deliver me.

I then noticed my phone was indeed around and resting on the nightstand like I had never lost it. Odd. I had searched high and low the night before trying to find it.

“I should probably go,” I mumbled, very conscious of my no-pants predicament.

Dr. Holt didn’t say anything. He meandered toward me with his hands in his pockets, very much at ease in light of my nervousness. I became still when he was standing beside me and bit down hard on my lower lip when his fingers brushed my hair away from my neck.

“So soon?” he purred. “Why don’t you stay a bit longer? You fell asleep last night before I was through with you, and it was very… disappointing.”

“My mom is going to be worried…”

He stepped in front of me, tall and imposing and smiling. His index finger touched my chin gently to bring my eyes back to his and it took all of my willpower to remain calm. There was still a bit of water in his black hair and I could smell his body wash. Maybe I could stay for a little while.

“She knows you’re safe with me,” he said. “I’m not done with you, Natalie.”

I stepped back, wringing my hands. “Don’t you think this is kind of… um… inappropriate? I mean, I’m not offended or anything but you’re a lot older than me and my professor and everything. I don’t want either of us to get in trouble because you’ll lose your job, right?”

Pierre raised an eyebrow and his gaze swept down my body in a fast, fluid motion. “I’m only 28 and as I’ve told you, the latter hardly bothers me. Nine years is the blink of an eye.”

It wasn’t to me. Nine years ago I had only been 10 years old and he had been my age, probably well into the throes of experimentation and already experiencing things beyond me. It was a pretty big gap in my eyes. He’d made it clear that we would never have a relationship but part of me kept masochistically hoping he would give it a chance just this once. But nine years was a long time.

“W-well, I don’t think I’m okay with the no-dating thing,” I stammered. It was time for me to take charge and say what I was thinking instead of quietly following his lead. “And… and you don’t let me touch you. It wouldn’t bother me if you would tell me why.”

“I don’t allow women to kiss me on the mouth, either. I would be a tremendous subject for any aspiring psychiatrist but I have no interest in knowing why I like and dislike various things.”

I could tell Pierre knew exactly why he hated being touched by the way his eyes narrowed infinitesimally when I mentioned it. Unfortunately, I was afraid to press him any further. It could reveal things I didn’t want to know and make him remember things he really didn’t want to recall.

The kissing thing surprised me. I’d always imagined he slept with a ton of women but that had to be impossible if he wasn’t capable of kissing any of them on the mouth. I had a strong impulse to touch my mouth again and almost smiled. It was a comforting compliment in a weird way. If he was okay with kissing me but never had been with anyone else, maybe he could change in other ways.

My cheeks burned and I looked at my hands. “Okay, that’s fine. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, and that brings me to another important point.” Pierre moved toward me again and wrapped me in his arms so my cheek was pressed to his warm chest. I could hear his methodical heartbeat. He rested his chin on top of my head in a possessive kind of way. “Though we are not ‘together’ in the traditional sense, I do consider you to be _mine_ , Natalie.”

I blinked furiously, positive I was about to have a stroke. “W-what?! But I didn’t agree to it!”

“I’ve freed you from the burden of choice. You belong to me until I see fit to release you. Perhaps that will be a week from now or three hours from now. Perhaps it will be twenty years. Regardless, you are mine, and I don’t particularly like to share.”

“But… but…”

“So I’d better not see you speaking with any strange men,” he whispered, tightening his grip.

If it was the closest I would get to dating Dr. Holt, I would do whatever he asked. I nodded quickly to show my wholehearted agreement and he relaxed a bit. He held the back of my head with one hand and the other remained wrapped around my back to grip the opposite hip. So after all those painstaking weeks of pretending to be indifferent we were finally together?

“Can I tell my friend Amanda?” I asked.

“No. Do not tell anyone.”

“Oh… okay.”

So we stood in silence for a few more minutes. Pierre dipped into the crux of my neck and shoulder and began kissing me very softly. His fingers knitted in my hair and pulled my head to the side so he had better access to my neck in particular, and soon I was struggling to keep my hands at my sides. What the hell did he expect me to do? I wasn’t a robot so of course I was going to react.

Pierre’s hands wandered and slipped underneath my cami to rub across my back. He took a step forward and I teetered back helplessly, struggling to keep my impatient fingers away from him. Another step and I felt the edge of the bed at the back of my knees. His kisses were growing more intense and lingering on my skin instead of moving from place to place.

His weight shifted toward me and I was forced to sit on the bed and promptly laid down as he crept on top of me. His mouth found mine, hungry and hot and wet, and I was clutching madly at the tangled sheets while Pierre pulled on my hair and gripped my thigh. I had a hard time believing he didn’t kiss many women. He tugged on my lower lip and drew it between his teeth, eliciting a small moan from me.

Whatever. Who cared about a weird bottle of pills, anyway? I was probably imagining things when I woke up and trying to justify my stupid behavior. Pierre was offbeat but he was so charming and intelligent and attractive that I could look past the quirks. They weren’t even that bad. I could deal with never touching him if it meant he’d be kissing me like this.

He pressed his body to mine, still carefully balancing his weight. “Do you want more, ma chouchou?”

And how exactly was I supposed to resist him when he started speaking French? I kissed him back eagerly and my hands instinctually touched his face.

Pierre jerked back like he’d been stung and pinned my wrists to the mattress, immediately bringing me to a halt. I winced and turned my head, trying not to meet his eyes as he angrily glared down at me. It wasn’t like I could really help it, and it wasn’t fair that he could touch me but I couldn’t do the same. What was I supposed to do in the heat of the moment?!

“Perhaps I need to restrain you,” he murmured.

I wanted to ask him what exactly he meant by that but my phone began to ring and the opportunity escaped me. Pierre scowled at it but leaned back and answered it himself, not bothering to restrain the irritation in his voice. I ran a hand through my hair and tried to catch my breath.

“Bonjour, Olivia,” he said, rising from the bed. “Je suis désolé, je ne pouvais pas rendre visite pour Noël. J'étais ... rattrapé une amie.” He glanced at me and smirked. “Je suis de langue française parce que mon amie ne fait pas. Comment les filles font?”

My phone was still lying dormant on the nightstand. I must’ve not noticed Dr. Holt’s. I took the chance to leave the house before I did anything too stupid and slipped out of bed to put my clothes on. They were folded neatly on a chest at the foot of the bed—I wouldn’t have expected anything less. I got dressed and irately wondered who on Earth this Olivia character was.

Apparently she spoke French. I bitterly shimmied into my jeans and the picture of an attractive woman with long black hair and even longer legs strolling down the stairs came to mind again. Olivia… she sounded pretty. I would see her around soon enough.

Pierre scowled. “Je ne suis pas l'amener en France. Nous revenons à des classes dans deux semaines.” He paused and rolled his eyes at something Olivia said. “Je considère que c'est. Appelez-moi plus tard.”

I tried to look indifferent. “Who was that?”

“My cousin, Olivia. She lives in France with most of my family.”

“Oh… cool. Do you see them often?”

“As infrequently as possible. I don’t care for large social gatherings.” He placed his phone on the nightstand again and frowned at me. “Are you leaving?”

“Yeah, I have to go to work before I get fired. But um, I’ll see you Friday, right?”

Dr. Holt nodded and escorted me downstairs, still completely fine with being half-naked. I stuttered out something that was supposed to be a thank you and he merely kissed my forehead when I left. Though he shut the door after I was down the porch steps, I could still feel his eyes on me until I was down the road and shrouded in the growing snowstorm.

I ran into my own house and breezed past my mother cooking lunch. She started crowing about how I was a big girl now dating important men and Sophie made a disgusted noise from the living room. I hurried upstairs to take a shower and charged my phone while I got dressed for work.

My heart was racing like never before. Technically, Pierre and I were together. He said I was his and everything so that counted to my raging, love-stricken insanity. I squealed a few times while I got ready from pure excitement and was surprised to see a bright girl squinting at me in the mirror instead of the usual thin lips pressed in a sardonic line. If only I could tell everyone the truth.

Luna’s was fairly quiet. Lena greeted me cheerfully and we got to work. I rang people out and practically danced around the place, finally free of my lifelong pining for Luke and thrust into an unorthodox but wonderful situation with an older man. I skipped my way back to the pharmacy to offer one of our pharmacists, Kevin, a box of cash register receipt tape. He took it gratefully and grinned.

“What has you so happy today, Natalie?” he asked.

“It’s a secret,” I said with a wink.

_Flunitrazepam. Flunitrazepam. It sounded so familiar…_

I leaned over the counter and peeked at the computer screen. “Actually, d’you think you could look up a drug for me? I saw the science-y name but I can’t remember the pharmaceutical one.”

“Sure thing,” Kevin said, looking back at his computer.

“Flunitrazepam. I could’ve sworn I heard it somewhere before.”

Kevin’s eyes widened and he turned back to me. “Where did you see it? Did you take any?”

“No… one of my friends had it. Isn’t it a sleeping pill or something?”

“Are you _positive_ you didn’t take any? Have you gone to the hospital to have a test run? Do you have any gaps in your memory?”

“What?!” I cried. “No, of course not!”

_I’d only had one glass of wine. Surely it didn’t affect me that deeply. Could one glass erase an entire night of memories? I had woken with the taste of peppermint in my mouth and a strange sensation of dryness on my tongue. My heart didn’t want to piece it together._

Kevin looked around to make sure there were no customers within earshot and leaned closer to me. He looked afraid. “Flunitrazepam is a benzodiazepine in the same class of common anti-depressants, like Xanax and Valium, or sleep aids like Ambien. However, it’s much more dangerous and its nefarious uses are what made me worry for you. I’m sure you’ve heard of Rohypnol before?”

My stomach turned. “R-Rohypnol? You mean…?”

“It’s used very rarely because it’s so difficult to come by, but yes, I mean that Rohypnol.” Kevin looked very sad. “It can cause anterograde amnesia which is a very convenient albeit dangerous side effect. If you aren’t positive you haven’t taken it, I highly suggest you visit a hospital as soon as possible.”

Had Pierre given me Rohypnol?


	18. In what distant deeps or skies

_The Donator’s boisterous laughter echoed in the halls, reaching me in my small bedroom. The wallpaper was a faded pink and torn in several places to reveal the filthy wall underneath. I sat quietly in my small bed amidst neatly made blue bed sheets meant to offset the feminine appeal of my walls that permeated all the way to the ornate and old dresser. There was little else of interest. It was plain, the product of a blue collar worker’s measly income._

_I was reading one of my mother’s favorite French books from her own childhood. She had taught me the language early on and I was nearly proficient at age seven, which did little to earn me new friends at my school. They mostly ridiculed me for the Donator’s alcoholism and my mother’s ancestry. The French were not well-accepted in rural Alabama._

_Thankfully, I picked up Cecilia’s accent rather than her husband’s. It would have helped me blend better with the other children if I carried a Southern drawl but I had the sharp and easy French manner of speaking that made me quite distinct amongst my peers. Children could be very cruel. It convinced me at a young age that I would never create such a foul creature if I could help it._

_My door creaked open and I glanced up to see my mother’s mascara-streaked face peering inside. She closed her long fingernails around the chipped door and smiled. She was beautiful. I imagined she had been much more appealing during her younger days before she met the Donator._

_Cecilia was wearing her elegant pink nightgown and I immediately realized what she was pursuing. I had been born with a conscience and the ability to feel fear. I shrank away from her, clutching the book tightly to my chest as my small heart began to patter in terror. Those reactions would die in several years and an empty husk would be left behind. I was a product of my environment._

_Mother smelled of flowers. She gently shut the door as to not rouse the Donator’s suspicion and slipped beneath my sheets, disturbing the bed I had worked so diligently to perfect. I bit my lower lip in anger but did not say a word to her. She would sob and he would come running._

_“Come, Pierre,” she crooned in her thick accent that was jarred from a recent crying fit. “Mummy is lonely and sad. Be a good boy and comfort me.”_

_A child’s mind is a fragile object. I was raised in dysfunction the likes of which many people never knew, and forced to choose the lesser of two evils. I chose the greater evil._

My eyes snapped open.

The bed sheets had been soaked with sweat in the course of my nightmare but thankfully Miss Taylor was not present to notice. I panted, staring at the ceiling with a heaving chest whilst unfamiliar fear trickled through my bones. My fingers tightened upon the damp sheets.

A scream tore violently from my throat and resonated through my silent, empty home.

_“You’re such a good boy, Pierre.”_


	19. Finds and shall find me unafraid.

Everything was perfectly fine.

I was sitting in bed watching cat videos on YouTube, hair once again thrown into a messy ponytail and wearing the rattiest pajamas I had. Pierre hadn’t _drugged_ me like some kind of sick weirdo. What purpose did it serve? He hadn’t raped me while I was unconscious and even when we kissed for the first time I was just… drunk. There were no drugs involved in that.

My eyes were puffy and red from crying and I sniffled pitifully. No, he didn’t have a reason to put roofies in my drink. He could’ve killed me if he wasn’t careful and he wouldn’t risk something like that. He smiled at me and touched me gently most times, unless I managed to piss him off. Those times were becoming more infrequent as I got used to his quirks. There was nothing wrong with him.

I couldn’t even bring myself to look up more information on Rohypnol. Every time I tried to click away from my page I would start trembling violently and click right back to watch more crazy cat antics. My eyes flickered to my cell phone constantly, hoping Pierre would text me to explain.

Speaking of which, I had contrived a great explanation for why my phone mysteriously disappeared after I found the bottle of pills in Pierre’s bathroom. I had it with me the whole time. When I devolved into drunken Natalie he politely set it aside for me and… and…

“It’s all a big misunderstanding,” I laughed to myself, shaking my head. “So what if he takes them sometimes to fall asleep? I’m only 19 and I’m already a raging alcoholic so I have no room to talk. Wine just affects me differently than it does most people and there’s no shame in that. Pierre never forced me to do anything against my will and he’s never going to. Ever.”

The attractive, sophisticated, intelligent man who had been murmuring to me in French only hours before while he kissed me passionately didn’t need to drug women. He probably knew he could have me whenever he wanted but he was being a gentleman and taking it slow. He had no ulterior motive and again, no reason to slip pills in my drinks. That was too insane to even consider.

I fell into a fitful sleep that night. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was about to happen.

_________________________________

“GOOOOOOD MORNING, NATALIEEEE!”

I woke up just in time to be squashed underneath a stranger’s weight, crushing the air out of the deepest recesses of my lungs. I spluttered and coughed while a familiar laugh forced all my fear back from whence it came and brought new life to my limbs. Amanda was home early.

“Amanda!” I shrieked, shoving her onto the floor. I leapt off the bed to tackle her in a bear hug. “Oh my god, this is the best surprise ever!”

My best friend was finally home and I could cry on her shoulder all I wanted. Mom was standing in the bedroom doorframe with Sophie, who was scowling at both of us. I demanded all the details of Amanda’s trip from her and noticed her deep tan she had been blessed with from the beach. She looked great—happy, healthy, and radiant. I could hardly contain my excitement.

We spent the greater part of the afternoon in my bedroom eating snacks and watching movies. It was so great to have her home and not feel like a leaf in the wind. I would be less tempted to visit my sort of boyfriend who wasn’t shed in a particularly bright light anymore and we could complain about how much we hated Luke for acting like such a jerk.

It hurt, though. If I went against Pierre’s orders and told her even a little about him, he would be furious. Mom was under the impression that we weren’t dating, thank goodness, but she was still a wild card. She could let it spill to Amanda at any time and then I was completely screwed.

But how would he find out? It wasn’t like he could do anything to me, anyway. He’d probably chastise me and mutter in French under his breath but that was all. Amanda wouldn’t tell a soul and my mother knew it was technically an inappropriate relationship, too. I’d make sure both of them knew to keep it a secret but I was eager to show off my new boyfriend to all of them.

“I met someone,” I blurted.

Amanda paused in the midst of shoving popcorn in her mouth, eyes bugging. She threw it back into the bowl and tossed it aside, turning her full attention to me.

“Like a guy?” she clarified. “If it’s a girl that’s okay, but I’m better at judging the attractiveness of men. Please don’t tell me it’s Luke, either.”

“Of course not! It’s a guy.” I paused, biting my lower lip. I was taking the plunge. “You know how Dr. Holt has been teaching me astronomy, right?”

Her jaw dropped. “ _No fucking way_!”

“…Yeah. It’s him.”

Amanda lunged forward to shake my shoulders in violent excitement. “Holy shit, Natalie, how did you manage to bag him?! Was it because of your newfound genius? Oh my god, tell me he has his own little telescope and you two look through it together. Do you do math together?!”

I dizzily grabbed her shoulders to steady myself. “Yeah, he’s the one teaching me. I told you that forever ago. Is it really that surprising that I can attract someone like him?”

“Yes!” she hissed. “I thought the guy was only showing you planets and stuff online, not putting the moves on you! Do you two meet at his house? Or does he have an apartment? I’ve only seen him a few times but he’s always looked like the fancy, romantic type. My little Natalie is finally getting laid!”

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” I snapped, hurrying to cover her mouth. “We aren’t having sex, and a few weeks in Florida doesn’t mean you can start talking like that! All we do is have wine and do homework. I didn’t even kiss him until a few days ago.”

“It’s definitely going to last if he’s taking his time. We have to go on a date or something. I’ll see if Jake can come along and we’ll go somewhere fancy because I doubt Dr. Holt will eat fast food. Or should we cook? I know you can’t so—” She stopped and suddenly put up her hand. “Please don’t tell me he’s made you dinner and please don’t tell me he’s an amazing cook.”

“…Well, I wouldn’t call him a _bad_ cook.”

She flopped dramatically on her side and screamed into a pillow that had fallen on the floor and I started to worry my mother would think I was stabbing my best friend. Okay, so it was sort of a big deal that I had such a perfect ‘boyfriend’ but why did it have to be so surprising?! How insulting!

We talked about him for a long time but I neatly avoided what I had to. I didn’t let Amanda know about his odd rage tendencies or my suspicions that he had been drugging me, choosing instead to glorify all the great things he had done. It was becoming a common theme with me in regards to Pierre. He was too perfect to be anything less than a god in my eyes.

A slow knock on my door interrupted our talk and I irately told my mother to come in. When she did, I was shocked to see tears streaming down her face, blurring her mascara.

“What’s wrong, Mrs. Rivera?” Amanda asked, quickly standing to comfort my mother.

Mom covered her face. “Natalie… Amanda… girls…” She started sobbing. “Your friend Luke is dead.”

There were no words. I stared at my mother and then at Amanda, whose eyes were also beginning to fill with tears. No. My first love was not dead.

All those times I had played outside in the mud with Luke while Amanda looked on felt like they had been so long ago. But I could still feel the cool wind in my hair and hear the sloshing of the rain water under my yellow boots while Luke and I searched high and low for frogs after a rainstorm. We would find one and dance excitedly before chasing Amanda around with the thing.

I stumbled backwards. Even after what he had tried to do to me; after the horrible words he had spat in his anger, I never wanted Luke to die. I didn’t want Miranda to die. I didn’t want anything to happen to them no matter how jealous and bitter I felt watching their happiness.

“The poor thing was attacked,” my mother choked. She had been like a second mother to him. “There was so much blood… he was disfigured… oh, god, why? Who is doing this to these poor children?”

The sunny afternoon became very bleak. Death was becoming a permanent fixture in my life.

All of us sat in the living room and cried together for the remainder of the day. Even Sophie shed a tear, though she was still furious with Luke for what he tried to do. The police were vague on the cause of death and reluctant to give many details. All the news stations showed the bright kid I had grown up with who didn’t have a care in the world. Poor, poor Luke.

Still, I couldn’t bring myself to feel the depth of sadness I should have. My resentment for Luke ran deep and strong no matter how hard I tried to ignore it and I was ready to forget the agony he had caused me by the time it was dark out. He didn’t deserve death, but he had hurt me on a deep level. I wanted to forget him and move on with my life to the bright light that was Dr. Pierre Holt.

Amanda went home around ten and mom went to bed, leaving me alone in the kitchen. I unlocked my cell phone and texted Pierre to let him know what happened and began to doze off. My phone vibrated only a few moments after sending the text.

_That’s very unfortunate. Hopefully they find the monster responsible._

_i hope so. it’s really nerve-wracking even being outside now._

I locked my phone, expecting he wouldn’t answer me until morning. To my surprise, it vibrated again and I was faced with another new text.

_Would you like to visit this evening? No wine involved. ;)_

If half the people in my house weren’t asleep I would’ve screamed “ah-ha!” and put my fears to rest forever. Pierre had openly offered to keep our night together alcohol-free, which meant he wasn’t trying to drug me and he didn’t even want me drunk. I excitedly agreed and leapt off the couch to get changed upstairs, confident that I would feel much better after another night with my… ‘boyfriend.’

I put on a clean set of clothes to wear out in the event Pierre wanted to go somewhere for a late night rendezvous and debated bringing a set of pajamas. It was much nicer borrowing his or not wearing any at all, so I decided against it and quietly left the house.

Pierre answered the door fully clothed this time in a grey undershirt and black pajama pants. Before I could even say ‘hello’ he pulled me inside and kicked the door shut. He pushed me against the wall beside the stairs and his mouth was on mine, hot and demanding. I immediately grasped the banister to keep my hands from wandering and pissing him off.

It felt like he didn’t know _how_ to be gentle. His teeth tugged on my lower lip until I bled and he crushed me into the wall so I couldn’t a move a fraction of an inch. His lean hands held my cheeks tightly, fingers pressing into my skin, and he kissed me deeply. It was exhilarating and frightening.

My phone vibrated when his lips were trailing a hot line across my neck. Pierre held one hip and slipped his other hand into my back pocket to take out my cell phone, briefly pausing to pant against my collar bone. I was trembling but held firm to the banister and licked the blood away from my lips. I heard my phone unlock and Pierre was quiet for a few moments.

The silence became more alarming the longer it wore on. I furrowed my brow but was unable to see his facial expression because he had his chin on my shoulder and was reading the phone behind my back. The banister was hurting my fingers.

“It’s your friend, Amanda,” he said coolly.

“Really? I thought she’d be asleep by now. What does she want?”

“Nothing much, only to wish the two of us a good night.”

“…Oh,” I faltered.

Pierre stood back, puckering his lips. “I distinctly recall instructing you to keep this a secret.”

“I’m sorry, I was only—”

The beautiful fingers I had admired so much closed around my throat and I reflexively touched his wrists to free myself only to be violently slammed into the wall. I quickly let my hands fall limply to my sides and stared at him in terror, struggling to rein in my tears before they overwhelmed me. His grasp tightened and I coughed but refused to let my arms move again.

Dr. Holt smiled dauntingly. “Whoopsies, my hand seems to have slipped.” He leaned close and I pressed myself with feverish fear against the wall, eyes wide. His smile drooped into a scowl. “Mistakes are very dangerous, Natalie. Neither of us can afford to make them.”

I nodded spastically, tears pricking the corners of my eyes. Pierre released my neck and I took deep, rattling breaths to steady myself while he idly watched. I felt sick to my stomach.

“Now that we’ve settled that business, what would you like to do this evening?” He looked over his shoulder toward the kitchen and sighed. “I’m a bit too tired to cook for either of us so perhaps we can go to one of those 24 hour diners in town. Are you hungry, mon chouchou?”

I sank to the floor, covering my head. “…No.”

How could he be so nonchalant about _choking_ me? My neck hurt and my head was swimming, confused and disbelieving. Pierre was so nice. Maybe his hand had really slipped and it was a mistake. I’d gone against my word and told Amanda about him so he had every right to be mad.

“Oh, how rude of me. You’re still grieving for your friend.”

“Yeah. Kind of.” I stared at the floor and listened to my heart thunder in my ears.

Pierre left the room. My cell phone started vibrating again but it was on the stairs and I wasn’t ready to stand up. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to convince myself everything was fine, when I heard his shoes click against the floor before me. I unwillingly followed his long legs up to his smiling face.

My spine prickled at the sight of a glass of red wine in his palm. No, no…

He tilted it towards me. “You need to relax, Natalie. Why don’t you have a bit of wine?”


	20. It matters not how strait the gate,

_Everything is fine… everything is fine… everything is fine._

The deep purple wine shivered against the glass as I clutched it with both hands, trying my damndest to keep a level head. There was probably a high dose of Rohypnol lurking within the seemingly innocent drink waiting to bludgeon my consciousness until I collapsed on the floor in a heap. It could be lethal. Pierre was an astronomer, not a pharmacist, so he didn’t know what he was doing. What if he was adding the drug willy-nilly and testing out dosages?

No, Pierre wasn’t drugging me. I’d already combed through that suspicion multiple times and come to the delusional conclusion that I was simply weak to wine. What the hell did he have to gain from knocking me out and not actually doing anything? Sure it meant he got to see me nearly naked a handful of times and we had made out once but he didn’t push it further.

Men only drugged women for one purpose and that wasn’t what he was going for. There couldn’t have been another reason or underlying drive to have me passed out down the hallway. Honestly, it was more of a hassle than trying to get in my pants the regular way, and he could’ve easily done so already. If I couldn’t find a logical reason for him slipping me roofies that meant he wasn’t doing it.

I stared at my wine. Would he lash out again if I didn’t drink it? Would he force me to? What if he decided I was a loose end and tried to kill me? No, no; my paranoia was spinning out of control. Pierre had a minor slip up and nothing more because I had gone back on a promise. I knew I could trust him. He was confident and cool as a cucumber. Nothing fazed him except for the occasional angry outburst. Otherwise, he was utterly unflappable.

“Aren’t you going to drink your wine, Natalie?”

Pierre was sitting at the other end of the couch holding his own half-empty glass of wine delicately in his palm, idly watching the movie flickering on the television. I didn’t even know what it was. I had become so wrapped up in my fear that I couldn’t focus on anything else. I had squeezed myself into the corner and had my knees drawn up protectively with my wine hidden behind them.

I curled my toes. “…No, I don’t think so.”

“Hm? Why not?”

“My neck hurts.”

“I warned you that I’m not gentle. Bold-faced lies do not translate well to verbal retaliation in my mind. Rather, the rage bypasses the filter and travels directly to my hands.” He looked at me lazily and smiled. “What happens after that is all up to chance, my darling.”

I glared at him and promptly slammed my glass down on the coffee table in a defiant gesture. The liquid sloshed over the sides but I ignored it and leaned back in my place with my arms crossed like a belligerent child. That was no excuse for grabbing my neck. He had to learn how to control himself.

“I’m not drinking it,” I said.

Pierre’s eyes were riveted on the small puddle of wine on the coffee table. He took a small sip of his own drink before calmly setting it down as well and frowned at me. My chest tightened.

“Very well,” he said. “I suppose I can’t make you.”

My heart soared when he collected the glasses and walked back to the kitchen. I knew he wasn’t drugging me! If he was, he would’ve insisted that I drink it and gotten much more hostile. I sighed with relief and finally relaxed in my spot. It must’ve been an accident when he grabbed my neck because he’d become much calmer over the past hour. He definitely didn’t mean it.

Pierre returned with a washcloth that I took from him to clean up the wine I had spilt. Reflecting back, my outburst felt immature and rude. All I had to do was politely say ‘no, thank you’ and be on my merry way. He was right—it wasn’t like he could force me to drink it.

And he had told me that he didn’t do well in relationships so that explained why he grabbed my neck. As far as I could tell it hadn’t left a bruise. It was no big deal. If I kept my promises and didn’t go back on them I had nothing to worry about. There was a good excuse for all of his behaviors.

Dr. Holt sat close beside me and gently grasped my calves to stretch my legs across his lap. The movie was still playing quietly in the background, illuminating his serene face in an intimidating way. It made me nervous all over again and I was disturbed to find how rapidly my emotions changed around him. He was an enigma and I wasn’t sure what to make of him.

“You don’t get out much, do you?” I asked.

“No. I’m not fond of large groups of people.”

I nodded, fingering the hem of my shirt. Pierre was starting to kind of make sense. I wasn’t shy in most situations and I usually enjoyed big groups. I liked to party and be surrounded by other people’s energy instead of sitting home alone. Maybe he confused me because we were so different? He was quieter and more reserved so he didn’t understand social cues as well. Right?

“So were you born in Washington?” I pressed, emboldened by my wine victory.

Pierre kept his eyes trained on the TV. “No.”

“…Then where were you born?”

“Rural Alabama.”

Dr. Holt was born in Alabama? I blinked in surprise at the revelation and tried to imagine him amongst a group of country kids with sandy hair and freckles. He probably stood out like a sore thumb. His accent wasn’t thick but it was definitely distinguishable and children were awfully cruel.

I examined my nails and tried to look nonchalant. “Why’d you move to Washington?”

“French people are poorly accepted in the southern United States,” Pierre said. “My manner of speaking and physical appearance upset many of my neighbors. If I’m ever lonely for my own people, Canada is just a few hours away.”

“Do you ever go back to France to see the other side of your family?”

“Occasionally. I don’t care for flying.”

“I’ve never been out of the country. Everyone says Europe is much better than the U.S., though.”

Pierre smiled wryly. “It is far superior in many ways.”

“Haven’t you ever considered moving back there?”

“Yes.” He looked at me, still smiling. “I’m waiting for the right moment.”

I wasn’t sure what to make of his words. I smiled back faintly and turned my attention to my hands, pleasantly nervous instead of sick to my stomach. Everything was fine. I didn’t have a drop of wine and I had my legs across Pierre’s lap while we watched a movie. We would go to bed soon and I could fall asleep beside him instead of collapsing in a drunken daze.

“Amanda wanted to go to Canada because their drinking age is 18,” I said. “We were considering going next summer for a week or something.”

“Hm. I’ll have to come along.” His fingers closed around my socks and he squeezed. “I can’t have you running off to foreign countries without me, Natalie. What if you get lost?”

“That’s pretty much a guarantee,” I muttered. “I used to get lost in Luke’s house all the time and I was there a lot when I was younger. His mom didn’t like me, though.”

Pierre gazed at me, emotionless. “What a shame he’s dead.”

I shrugged and tried not to think of all the fun times with Luke. He’d changed and he would never be the same kid I knew again. My first love had wound up being a total flop and though my second was looking better, it was only a mild improvement.

My spine stiffened. What the hell was I thinking?! I wasn’t in love with Dr. Holt or anything like that! I had only known him for a few weeks and the guy wrapped his fingers around my neck like it was nothing. Sure I had a good reason for that as well as the suspected drugging incidents but… well; he didn’t do relationships, anyway. He wouldn’t even let me tell people about him.

Otherwise, he was perfect. I’d spent so many nights fantasizing about him that I had a neatly organized list of traits compiled in my head. His accent was to die for, and the way he inflected certain words turned my bones to jelly. His physical features spoke for themselves—I tried not to let myself ruminate over them too much because it made me question why he was even interested in a girl like me. His fingers were strong but graceful and he carried himself like royalty.

And his brain. Not the tangible organ, obviously, but he was an absolute genius. He held quiet opinions on most topics that he would express politely but politics weren’t really his thing. We had talked about a few controversial things between calculus problems. Neither of us were particular passionate about them and we agreed almost completely.

When I left at night Pierre would follow me onto the porch and stand there with his hands in his pockets and his eyes turned toward the sky. He would tilt his head slightly, a quirk that helped convince me he was a real human and not a robot, and a smile would touch the corners of his lips. His deep blue eyes would flicker across the black, starry expanse overhead, effortlessly connecting constellations. Even the cold didn’t seem to affect him when the night sky loomed above.

Pierre was nothing like Luke. I couldn’t have drawn a similarity if I tried other than my inexplicable attraction to both of them. Maybe I had grown out of Luke and into something more adult; more serious and difficult. Pierre was shrouded in mystery and that piqued my curiosity.

I shook my head to dispel my thoughts. “I’m definitely not going out partying anytime soon with some psychopath on the loose. Can you believe two people have been killed within a month? The city is sketchy in some areas but it’s not that bad, and why would someone target Luke and Miranda? Both of them are fairly well-off so they couldn’t have been easy to get at.”

“We will never fully comprehend the inner workings of such animals,” Pierre said. “It’s a shame two young people are forced to pay the price.”

“The last time anyone was even killed around here had to have been—”

I stopped and pressed my lips together. Now wasn’t the time to think about dad. It had been ten years since the police had shown up on our rainy doorstep with their heads bowed; since I had stared at the closed coffin my father’s mutilated corpse laid within. He had been slaughtered, not murdered.

Pierre paused in rubbing my feet. “Who, darling? I moved to Washington when I was 18 to finish my degree, so I am not entirely familiar with such things.”

Of course he started college early. I pressed my feet against his palms and shrugged.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Forget it. When did you start college?”

“When I was 16. I completed two years in Alabama before coming to Washington to complete my degree at our prestigious university.” He put his hand on my thigh, smiling. “Why are you trying to change the subject? Have I offended you?”

“…No. I just don’t want to talk about it.”

“Someone you knew, perhaps?”

My neck prickled. “Yeah, it was. And it was ten years ago so I’m over it.”

“Tell me, Natalie,” Pierre purred. “Now you’ve made me morbidly curious.”

“It was my dad, okay?” I snapped, immediately yanking my legs back. I turned away from him and glared out the window at the snow drifts flying by. “He was in the wrong place at the wrong time and some lunatic tortured him. I don’t really like to think about it, so can you drop it?”

The only sound was the television for a while. Pierre’s hands were draped in his lap and he silently watched the movie as I had asked. I turned my glare to the floor and imagined I could burn holes through it. What if the person who killed my father had come back for more?

“Ten years ago?” Pierre asked quietly.

“Yes. I was nine.”

“…I see.” He looked at me and smiled placatingly but it was weak. “I lost both of my parents when I was sixteen years old to unfortunate circumstances. It is quite painful.”

It was the point where most people would embrace and cry but Pierre did not want to be touched. I didn’t know how to comfort him or whether or not he even wanted it. I only nodded in agreement and studied the lines in my palms again, still vying for the opportunity to wrap my arms around him.

What if we had sex? It was the logical next step and though I was terrified by the prospect of it, I didn’t know how we could even do it if I couldn’t touch him. It was possible but it would lack any trace of intimacy so I wouldn’t really like. I didn’t want to lose my virginity with my wrists pinned down and my face pushed against the pillows. That was okay after the first time.

_You’re talking about death, you freak! Stop thinking about sex when he’s finally opening up to you. You’re acting like a hormonal teenage boy._

“Yeah, it sucks,” I said quickly, trying to divert my derailing train of thought. “I’m kind of sleepy now. Are you ready for bed?”

The movie was finally stopped and Pierre followed me up the stairs to the second floor, past the bathroom and the guest bedroom to his own room at the end of the hall. I stood outside of it with my arms folded to let him enter first and he laughed at me. It seemed rude and intrusive to barge into his bedroom like I owned the place. I was very careful with social nuances around him.

The carpet was beige like the beach and the walls were light grey. I hadn’t been to see much the past few times I had been in his room because I was mostly drunk or hungover. The comforter was beige with grey sheets and I sourly came to terms with how bleak Pierre’s color palette was. There was a night stand on either side of the bed, each with its own lamp, and the bathroom door was ajar. A large closet with two doors was closed against the right wall.

There was a set of glass double doors leading to a small balcony that offered a terrific view of the woods beyond us, tapering softly into the huge mountains. I noticed a large telescope sitting before a chair and smiled dryly to myself. Of course he had a telescope. What space nerd wouldn’t?

“Want me to bring this inside?” I asked, eyeing the telescope. “It’s gonna get snowed on.”

“No need. It’s ancient and I’ve been meaning to find a new one.” He sighed. “Natalie, did you bring something to sleep in tonight?”

I turned to face Pierre’s amused expression and grinned. “Nope! I’m borrowing from you again.”

“What if I’m not in the mood to share this evening?”

“I’ll just steal yours while you’re asleep. I know how you love being touched.”

“Ooo, a bit of sass from Miss Taylor,” Pierre murmured. “Making light of my traumas, are you?”

I stuck my tongue out playfully and shuffled to the bed. “That’s what you get for grabbing my neck out of nowhere. An eye for an eye.”

He raised an eyebrow, smirking. “Fair enough.”

This time I was free to get out of my own clothes. Pierre busied himself with bringing the telescope inside so I quickly shimmied out of my jeans and tugged off my shirt, opting to leave on both my bra and camisole. I slipped beneath the sheets before he turned around and buried my face in one of the beige pillows to hide the creeping heat in my cheeks.

The bed shifted with added weight and I twitched when his warm palm slid across my back. His fingers hooked over my ribcage and he tugged gently until I turned on my side. I thanked whatever god there was that he couldn’t see my blush as he pulled me flush against him. He draped his arm across my waist and closed his hand over one of mine, probably to keep me from trying to touch him.

“You’re warm,” I said stupidly.

The house was eerily silent. The curtains keeping the balcony doors obscured were a bit thin and allowed some moonlight inside that slanted across Pierre’s hand. His skin was tanner than mine.

He kissed close to the top of my head. “Oui. Would you prefer me to be cold?”

“Don’t pick on me for saying dumb things,” I whined.

“How else will you learn not to say them?” His damned lips found my neck.

My eyes fluttered. “Uh… yeah, you’re right…”

Pierre kissed my flesh hungrily and I obediently arched my neck to grant him better access to my throat. His grip tightened on my hand when I made a tiny sound and I moved my knee a fraction of an inch so it touched the cold sheets beyond the boundary of our body heat. I shivered and pressed closer to Pierre and his hand was suddenly hooked on my hip, straining me closer.

I squeaked when I felt his hardness press against my tailbone and his other hand twisted backwards to cover my mouth. His fingers squeezed my hip and he panted into my neck. I clung desperately to the sheets to keep my hands from wandering and ruining everything.

Was it going to happen? I wasn’t completely against it but I was horribly nervous. I struggled to remember if I had taken my birth control that morning when Pierre groaned gutturally into my ear and my thoughts were jumbled all over again. His teeth tugged on my earlobe and I whimpered into his palm, rubbing my thighs together impatiently. If only I could turn and face him.

“Shhh,” he whispered into my ear, “you mustn’t be so impatient, princesse.”

I twisted my hips and reached my own hand between my legs, unable to contain myself. Pierre promptly pulled it away and pinned it back to the bed, now halfway on top of my back.

“None of that,” he crooned, stroking my thumb with his own. “Only I may give you pleasure, Natalie.”

His weight pressing down on my upper body made it impossible for me to move or speak a word. I turned my wrist desperately in his grasp while he continued to rhythmically grind against me. I’d just about given up when he forced his middle finger between my lips and I instinctively sucked.

He pumped his digit in and out of my mouth. “Ah… maman… maman…” His roaming mouth came to my shoulder and he pulled my skin between his teeth with the same ferocity. “Maman… maman…”

My stomach tightened nervously when his hand left mine and I squeaked into his waiting palm when his hand cupped me tenderly. His fingers glided across my panties in long, sweeping motions and my eyes rolled back as I was flooded with the pleasure I had been vying for. His hands were perfect. I had been kind of concerned that he would need my guidance but Pierre was clearly in his element.

I struggled in his arms and came closer and closer to my waiting euphoria…

And his hand was gone as quickly as it had come. His finger popped out of my mouth and he withdrew from me, leaving my side of the bed very cold and uncomfortable. I panted with wide eyes for several seconds before turning over to face him and figure out what I had done wrong.

Pierre was sucking my saliva off his middle finger. He smiled.

“Only girls who drink their wine are rewarded,” he said. “Goodnight, Natalie.”

I dreamt of ramming him through with a steak knife as I fell into a fitful sleep.


	21. How charged with punishments the scroll,

I’d come to realize that Pierre watched any random sitcom at precisely 11 o’clock in the morning every day, or at least the times I had been there. He would zone out for exactly half an hour and even the slightest interruption would result in a frightening reaction. He was set in his habits.

When I woke in the morning I stared at the ceiling while the show played downstairs and waited to get out of bed. I didn’t want to risk inciting his anger and I was still pissed off about his petty revenge from the night before. I rubbed my thighs together irately, tormented by the residual desire. I didn’t care—I wasn’t going to drink his damn wine anymore unless I poured it myself.

It was time for me to straighten my spine and look Pierre in the eye. I needed to stand up for myself even if that meant he would be annoyed or even grab my neck again. Natalie Taylor was through taking things lying down and most importantly, she wasn’t going to be a drug rug. I would straighten my upper lip and demand the answers I wanted.

I groaned and pulled the comforter over my head. Okay, it was a good first step, but now it was even harder because I _wanted_ him. If his hands wandered between my legs again I knew I was doomed. And the way he whispered those French words in my ears… what had he said? It sounded like “mammal” but I highly doubted that was it. It was so frustrating hearing those pretty phrases without interpreting them, especially when he offhandedly called me a “shoeshoe.”

Around quarter to noon I slid out of bed and shuffled to the bathroom, which was locked. I made a mental note to look for a key later on but gave in and wandered down the hall to the second bathroom. The house was cold and dark thanks to the heavy snow falling outside.

I took a shower and stole another toothbrush from the cabinet to freshen up a bit. With my hair in a towel I tiptoed back to the bedroom to nab some of Pierre’s clothes from his dresser, settling upon an older blue dress shirt and grey pajama pants. I looked around his room sourly while I dressed. It was so formal and cold; not like a normal bedroom at all. He needed to redecorate.

I rolled up the pants so I could actually walk in them and skipped downstairs to the living room, expecting to see Pierre zombified before the television. The next sitcom was playing but he was nowhere to be seen. Surprised, I turned in circles a few times to make sure he wasn’t trying to scare me.

“Pierre?” I called.

The people on the TV were arguing and it was the only sound I could hear. I folded my arms over my chest and walked into the dark kitchen first, soon routing around to the formal dining room to see he wasn’t there, either. I looked out the window to see both of our cars still parked so I decided it was time to check the dreaded basement.

The door was set into the stairs where Pierre had pinned me by the throat. I shivered but bravely opened the door and peered down the long staircase into the black abyss below. It was even colder than the house and smelled strongly of must. I opened my mouth to call his name again when I heard a faint tune drifting up the stairs toward me…

_Au clair de la lune_  
Mon ami Pierrot  
Prête-moi ta plume  
Pour écrire un mot  
Ma chandelle est morte  
Je n'ai plus de feu  
Ouvre-moi ta porte  
Pour l'amour de Dieu 

The door creaked as I leaned my weight on it, struggling to hear the song. It had a pleasant tune like a lullaby or children’s poem but coming out of the shadowy basement it felt far more sinister. The abyss stared back into me as I debated whether or not I should proceed. Was it worth it?

I glanced over my shoulder before taking the first step into the basement but left the door open behind me to offer some light. The steps already had bare footprints on them.

_Au clair de la lune,_  
Pierrot répondit :  
« Je n'ai pas de plume,  
Je suis dans mon lit.  
Va chez la voisine,  
Je crois qu'elle y est,  
Car dans sa cuisine  
On bat le briquet. » 

My damp hair started feeling miserably cold on the way down. I shivered and rubbed my arms, afraid to make a sound for some reason. It felt like I was intruding on hallowed ground. The thin beam of light from upstairs disintegrated when I reached the bottom step and my eyes struggled to adjust. The cement floor was frigid beneath the fragile soles of my feet.

_Au clair de la lune,_  
L'aimable Lubin;  
Frappe chez la brune,  
Elle répond soudain :  
–Qui frappe de la sorte ?  
Il dit à son tour :  
–Ouvrez votre porte,  
Pour le Dieu d'Amour. 

There was a shaky male voice intermingling with the woman singing the song. I walked through the frightfully empty basement that stretched into oblivion on either side of me and headed toward a small circle of light around a corner. Water was running against a sink and something was being scrubbed very hard. I heard a sound of metal and started trembling.

_Au clair de la lune,_  
On n'y voit qu'un peu.  
On chercha la plume,  
On chercha le feu. 

Terrified, I turned the corner to see Pierre hunched on the floor with his bare back exposed, spine protruding in the poor light. His hair was dripping on the cement and a lone candle flickered two feet away from him to offer the thin beams across the floor. There was a faucet turned on before him that had since overfilled whatever container was hidden by his back. My eyes flickered down to the pool that had gathered around his body but he didn’t seem to mind.

Something splashed in the water. Pierre’s voice strengthened on the last four lines. An old boombox was on the opposing side of the candle, playing the eerie lullaby.

_En cherchant d'la sorte,_  
Je n'sais c'qu'on trouva ;  
Mais je sais qu'la porte  
Sur eux se ferma. 

The song tapered off and I expected it was over but soon I heard the first line again. My spine prickled and I took a small step back when Pierre obediently resumed singing. His voice was colder now; almost as cold as the freezing basement he had set up shop in.

The candle suddenly flared and illuminated the water around Pierre, glistening maroon against the stony grey floor beneath. My eyes widened and I couldn’t look away as a thin line of water trickled toward my feet. Red? Why the hell was the water red? It had to be from rust, right?

“Ouvre-moi ta porte,” he sang, harshly scrubbing something, “pour l’amour de Dieu.” The woman kept singing the song but Pierre threw down whatever he was holding and grabbed the back of his head with both hands, leaning forward and screaming. “Pour l’amour de Dieu, pour l’amour de Dieu, _pour l’amour de Dieu_!”

Pierre panted for a few minutes while the song continued in the background and the water gathered into a lake. His grip tightened on his hair and he shook his head, laughing derisively to himself. Frightened, I took a step back and my foot splashed in the water.

He stiffened and immediately twisted his upper body to face me, unleashing his wide and wild gaze on me before I could take another step. His blue eyes seemed to glow in the pressing darkness and caught each small flare of the candle. I was trapped. I knew running away was the worst thing to do.

A while passed before anything happened. Pierre shut off the boombox and slowly got to his feet, only wearing a pair of boxers that were almost soaked through. I clung to the wall when he wavered and glanced at the Rubbermaid container he’d been sitting in front of. The water inside it was a deep red but I could discern what he had been cleaning by the long, black handle resting on the rim of the container.

My heart thundered like never before. I tried to slip around the wall and remembered I’d left my car keys up in the bedroom. There was no chance of escape unless I was going on foot.

I trailed down his long legs with a growing sense of dread. No, there was no chance of escape at all. Pierre might have been a nerd but he was obviously an athlete, too. He’d catch me in ten seconds flat and then… well, I doubted it would be happily ever after.

“Bonjour, mademoiselle,” Pierre slurred, bowing dramatically.

It didn’t smell like alcohol but it was glaringly obvious that he was on something. I swallowed hard and inclined my head back, very curious about the bloody water.

“Hi,” I mumbled. “Um… what exactly are you doing?”

Pierre rubbed his head and blinked at me. “A very good question, Miss Taylor.” He looked down at the water and suddenly remembered to turn off the faucet. “I do distinctly recall slicing meat in the kitchen and for some reason or another I was inspired to clean myself in the basement.”

It made sense so I eagerly accepted his excuse. I heaved a relieved sigh and stepped from behind the wall, shaking my head and laughing. What the hell was I thinking? It wasn’t like he was butchering people in his basement. The place was empty and dusty so he probably never even visited. He probably had wine with his breakfast and overindulged a little.

“You scared me!” I accused teasingly. “What was that song, anyway?”

“’Au Clair de la Lune.’ It’s a rather popular lullaby in France that my mother would sing to me.” Pierre smiled. “You should consider learning it, Natalie.”

“I’ll do a lot of things but singing a lullaby to a grown man is definitely not one of them. Why don’t we go upstairs? I’m freezing down here and you must be, too.”

Away we went. Pierre followed me into the house and the basement door was shut and locked behind him. He continued humming the lullaby and I had to coax him upstairs to get him out of his wet clothes before he got pneumonia. When we reached his bedroom he tried to cover my eyes while he retrieved the bathroom key but I noticed it was in the bottom drawer of the dresser. I also noticed a roll of silver duct tape lying beside the key.

Pierre opened the bathroom and lazily stumbled inside, now back to singing the song instead of keeping it under his breath. I rolled my eyes and picked out some clean clothes for him, shamefully happy to see him so much more relaxed than normal. He wasn’t keeping his guard up.

When I stepped inside the bathroom to give him his clothes I saw a jar with a white powder inside. My eyes widened and Pierre peeked over his shoulder at the offending substance. Was he on meth?! Cocaine?! I didn’t know too many other white powders that would turn a tightly-wound scientist into an admittedly entertaining lunatic.

He laughed. “Don’t worry, mon chouchou, it isn’t what you think. Would you like some?”

I glared up at him and crossed my arms. “No! I’m not doing drugs with you!”

“It is merely a byproduct of fermentation. You probably drank it in your wine.” He paused and made a disgusted face. “Or beer. Besides, I’ve already given it to you.”

It was incredibly unpleasant having my fears confirmed. I stared at the container of powder and wondered what exactly Pierre had slipped in my drink when I was abruptly yanked into the bathroom.

The door was pulled shut and he crushed me against it, still wearing his wet boxers with the dry clothes abandoned on the sink. I began to protest but Pierre kissed me aggressively, holding my face tightly between his palms and rapidly deepening said kiss. As I fought my animalistic urge to grab him in return I affirmed my conviction that he was bullshitting me about never kissing women.

What did it matter? Now that I knew I wouldn’t let him drug me again. I’d escaped unscathed each time and I hadn’t died or anything. It wasn’t a big deal.

Pierre’s hands moved to my thighs and he pulled on them, inching me up the door to wrap my legs around his waist. Though he could hold me steadily I couldn’t keep my balance and accidentally set my palms on his warm shoulders, wincing in expectation of his response. But his lips only left mine and went to my neck to roll the sensitive flesh between his teeth.

I was in such shock that I hardly registered him grinding against me in tortuously slow motions. Afraid he would notice, I gradually slid my palms down his arms to feel his tense muscles that helped support me against the door. Was I dreaming or was Pierre too high to care about what I was doing?

“Ouvrez votre porte pour le Dieu d'Amour,” he groaned.

Dammit, why had I been such a prude and put pants on, anyway? I ran my fingers across his smooth skin and he pressed closer, allowing me to wrap my arms around his back. I could have rested my head on his shoulder and contently drifted off but Pierre wouldn’t stand for that. If only I could feel his abs… they were currently too risky to reach for which meant I was cursed to keep waiting.

One of Pierre’s hands left me and fumbled with the door knob until it released, nearly sending both of us to the floor. He quickly caught me before I fell and stumbled toward the bed. His hungry mouth came to mine again and I was caught up in kissing him, desperate for the release I had been denied.

We fell into bed together. Pierre yanked open the dress shirt and kneaded my breasts in his palm while the other slipped beneath the hem of my pants. Then he was biting my neck again and I writhed from his touch, gasping when his fingers trailed across my sex. He unceremoniously pushed his middle finger inside me and I reflexively hissed from the intrusion.

“So you _are_ a virgin,” he mused against my throat. His mouth was near my ear seconds later. “Does it hurt, Natalie?”

I nodded, wincing. “Kind of, yeah.”

A small whimper left me when he jerked his finger forward, stretching my insides. My hands were back to lying at my sides and I was fisting the sheets. Shit, it really did hurt.

Another finger joined the first and I twisted away from him this time but we trapped underneath his weight. He moved mercilessly and though my eyes were squeezed shut I could feel him watching my face. The hand on my breast seized my chin to keep my head in place.

“What did I tell you about touching me?” he purred.

“I’m so sorry, I won’t—”

Pierre’s fingers curved and stroked my insides, liquefying my limbs. Holy shit. I pushed against his hand eagerly this time and one of my stupid hands grabbed his shoulder.

The wonderful feeling stopped and Pierre was smiling down at me plaintively. I licked my lips, stunned and too horny to care about much of anything. His blue eyes flickered to my hand and I quickly tore it away, holding my own wrist like I’d broken it.

When he started to get up I genuinely panicked. There was no way I could go another entire day or night without release. I needed him more than the damn air I was breathing.

“Why don’t you use the duct tape to keep my hands down?” I blurted. “Then I won’t be able to touch you at all!”

He was sitting at the edge of the bed, broad back facing me. His blue eyes sparkled when he offered me his attention again and I had the same sinking feeling I got whenever I drank his wine. I watched enraptured as he delicately sucked on the two fingers that had been inside me.

Of course, in the usual way of things, the doorbell rang.

Pierre became alert and scowled, withdrawing his fingers from his mouth with a pop. “That is undoubtedly Dr. Purlieu. Would you mind tending to him, Natalie? I need to get dressed into something more appropriate.”

“W-what?!” I sat up and threw a pillow at him angrily. “You can’t keep doing this to me!”

“I can do whatever I want to you, princesse. Invite our guest inside, please. You are a grown woman, not a beast at the beck and call of her libido.”

I stared at Pierre in disbelief until he disappeared inside the bathroom. Why did he insist on torturing me so much?! He wouldn’t even let me touch him and… and…

“You’re such an asshole!” I shrieked.


	22. Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

_“Pierre, your lunch is ready!”_

_It was another boiling afternoon in Alabama and the neighbor’s ankle-biting dog was being particularly loud, shrieking madly at passerby. I made a mental notation to kill the creature after night had fallen and unwillingly left my Stephen Hawking novel to hurry downstairs. My mother’s voice had a strong pull on me. I was hapless, eager to establish a viable parent._

_Cecilia was already sitting at the table in a chair adjacent to mine, twirling a lock of her long brown hair around a finger while she studied the newspaper. She glanced up to acknowledge my arrival—I was ten years old and still rather small for my age. The other children dearly loved to torment me._

_“Bonjour, maman,” I said politely as I sat down._

_“Bonjour, mon cheri. I haven’t been able to visit the market so I made you pancakes and eggs for lunch today. I hope you don’t mind too much.”_

_“That’s okay.”_

_A cup of red wine was resting beside my plate. It was commonplace. Mother frequently offered me wine, usually with each meal, and it irritated the Donator to no end. It was ironic, really: a French immigrant descended from a wealthy family fled to the United States in search of something more, only to find herself mired in the worst sort of situation. She clung tightly to her heritage._

_“What do you think of this car?” mother asked, turning the newspaper to face me. “Your father is always ranting about how I borrow his too frequently so I was considering buying my own.” She smiled and the dimples of her cheeks darkened. “We could have some privacy.”_

_My stomach still twisted as it had years ago but I was becoming more numb by the day. I merely shrugged and continued eating, training my eyes on three children chasing each other outside. Mother preferred that I stayed away from them and their torn overalls._

_The front door opened and the Donator himself entered, garbed in his own dirty construction clothes with his blonde hair plastered to his head. He was tall like I had become and had a thick beard that made his already pudgy face look far worse. He shut the door behind him and set his brown paper bag on the kitchen counter, watching mother and I intently._

_Mother looked at him irately. “No food for your son, Paul? Certainly you’ve realized by now that Pierre can’t subsist off of beer like you can.”_

_The Donator’s mouth twisted angrily and he began to respond but noticed the green plastic cup in my hand. He growled and lumbered forward to rip it from my grasp, then promptly doused my mother in the wine. Cecilia leapt to her feet with a furious shriek. Her favorite red nightgown was ruined._

_“This isn’t France,” the Donator snarled, sticking his index finger in her face. “Quit drownin’ my kid in wine or you’re gonna fuckin’ regret it.”_

_“It’s a perfectly acceptable drink for lunch, inbred!”_

_“No, you just want him buzzed.” The Donator suddenly grabbed my mother’s neck and shook her violently to her head snapped back and forth. “And if I fucking hear you in his fucking bedroom tonight, I’m really gonna smack the shit out of you!”_

_“Pierre needs me!” she wailed, struggling against his iron grasp. “You don’t understand!”_

_“If you hadn’t given him such a dumbass name he might have more goddamn friends!”_

_I was already well acquainted with my social inadequacies. Agitated by their mention, I stood quickly from my chair and attacked the Donator in the only way available: sinking my teeth into his forearm. He howled in agony and released my mother, cursing endlessly. Mother snatched my hand and hurried up the stairs to my bedroom, slamming and locking the door before the Donator could follow._

_Mother led me into my closet amongst the pillows and blankets she had set out long ago. She held me in her lap and sang the familiar tune while the Donator pounded on the door._

  
_Au clair de la lune_  
Mon ami Pierrot  
Prête-moi ta plume  
Pour écrire un mot  
Ma chandelle est morte  
Je n'ai plus de feu  
Ouvre-moi ta porte  
Pour l'amour de Dieu

_I closed my eyes and leaned into her bosom as one of her lissome hands slipped beneath the hem of my jeans. She smelled of flowers._

With a wild gasp, I tore free of the memory.

I was hunched over my bathroom sink with the water running into the drain in an endless swirl. Sweat beaded on my forehead and I was wracked with tremors, resisting a deeply buried memory. It was wrong. The situations I had created were far more digestible and kept my episodes at bay.

I ran a hand through my hair and squeezed my eyes shut as a strangled scream rattled in my lungs, desperate to alert Natalie of my condition. More preparations were needed. She was nearly ready but another incident like the one in the basement would surely destroy all of my hard work.

Trembling, I replaced the GHB in the cabinet. I’d woken to a particularly gruesome episode in the morning and decided to take a bit of the drug to soften my mind. It did not interact well with my absent empathy and I had nearly given myself away to Natalie while I cleaned my knife for her.

There would be no other. When the time came, the parched blade would imbibe only her blood.


	23. I am the master of my fate

When I opened the door to let Dr. Purlieu inside a buffet of freezing wind made me stagger back a couple of feet, precariously balancing on my heels. It was getting nasty out and I wondered if I would even be able to go home in the morning. He quickly shut the door and apologized profusely while taking off his boots that were covered in white drifts and mud.

I laughed and waved him off. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it. Pierre should be down in a minute.”

“Good. I need to speak with you before he convenes with us.” Dr. Purlieu glanced up the staircase, unwrapping his scarf from around his neck. “How long have you been here?”

The tone of his voice was kind of scary. I folded my arms over my chest to hide my bralessness and tried to remember when exactly I had come down. It felt like so long ago.

“Fairly late last night,” I said, puckering my lips. “My childhood friend was murdered yesterday morning and I was sick of being around all the crying so I came here. Sorry it took me so long to come to the door. Pierre has been kind of… off, I guess.”

“At least you aren’t wearing the nightgown. Do you know if he slept through the night?”

“Um… I think so. I woke up around 11 to let him watch his show and I found him in the basement. Why? Is something wrong?”

Louis suddenly grabbed my shoulders to look me in the eyes. “What was he doing?”

“W-what? What’s going on?”

“This is very important, Miss Taylor. What was Pierre doing in the basement when you found him?”

I blinked owlishly. “Listening to some song and… cleaning a knife.”

At that point, everything pieced together in my head. I was still resisting accepting the truth glaring me down but I wasn’t as stupid as I thought. I’d known from the moment I first visited Dr. Holt that he was unstable yet I chose to ignore it and live in a fantasy where he was flawless. Externally that was very true and it was part of why I fell for his ruse. But if you peeled back the layers, a rotting core awaited you.

Dr. Purlieu swore under his breath. He had looked as calm and composed as Pierre when I met him a few weeks ago; maybe even more so, but now he was seriously upset.

“Was it ‘Au Clair de la Lune?’” he asked in a low tone.

I nodded. My chest hurt.

He swore again and shook me gently to keep me focused. “Do you know where your keys are? I would bring you home myself but I should stay and see what I can do to help him.”

“Can I help?” I asked. “I don’t want to leave him here.” I grabbed Louis’s wrists, terrified. “Do you know why he acts like this? He won’t even let me touch him and he told me he doesn’t usually let women kiss him on the mouth, either. Do you know why?”

“How nice to see you, Louis.”

Both of us turned our eyes to the stairs to see Pierre standing between two facing toward us, his head tilted slightly and a ghoulish smile on his lips. He was wearing black pants with a black belt and his blue shirt was tucked in neatly. His hands were in his pockets with dignified calmness.

Dr. Purlieu promptly removed his hands from my shoulders and took an obvious step back. I glanced between the two men, wide-eyed and confused. What was happening? I didn’t know Louis that well but I did know he was married and very happy with his wife. He wasn’t trying to hit on me or anything.

Pierre’s cold eyes didn’t leave his friend’s hands. Was he… _jealous_?

“Good afternoon,” Dr. Purlieu said. “How are you feeling, Pierre?”

The stairs groaned as Pierre idly descended them, stretching the smile as far across his face as it could go. His shoes clicked on the hardwood when he left the final step and he stopped there, unmoving and bright as a wildfire eating away a forest. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I had a sinking feeling again and this time I couldn’t explain it away.

“Natalie and I are a bit busy,” Pierre said, completely ignoring Louis’s question. “Is there something in particular I can help you with? I’m sure you didn’t brave this blizzard for no reason.”

“I was only visiting to discuss the recent murders,” Louis replied coolly. “Two of Miss Taylor’s friends, if I’m not mistaken. Such a tragedy.”

Though I wouldn’t have referred to Miranda as a friend per se it was jarring hearing the deaths separated in that manner. We lived in a fairly small town but it was still odd that two people I knew so intimately had been killed in cold blood. My spine prickled as my thoughts began to wander.

“Karma does have a fascinating habit of rebounding to collect what it has missed.” Pierre slowly approached us and stood directly in front of Louis, tall and intimidating.

Dr. Purlieu smiled. “Yes, it does. Well, I don’t want to impose and Miss Taylor told me she isn’t feeling very well. I’m sure it’s from all the wonderful wine and the loss of her friend. There’s no need for her keys—I’ll bring her home myself and see you on another day, Pierre.”

I watched in horror as Pierre reached behind himself to withdraw a long, thin knife from his belt loop that glinted in the poor light. Louis immediately stepped in front of me and straightened his spine to stare him down. No. What was Dr. Holt doing? He had to be groggy from whatever he had taken. He would never deliberately hurt someone.

“Natalie belongs to me,” Pierre said.

The knife slashed forward and I heard a sickening sound of metal on flesh before Louis collapsed on his knees before me. He fell face-first to the floor making all sorts of gruesome noises and blood poured freely from the huge gash across his throat. Pierre stood over him with the knife now covered in gore and his icy blue eyes flickered up to gauge my expression.

I’d never run so fast in my life. In two seconds flat my bare feet were crunching through the thick drifts of snow and I was squinting against the gusts of cold wind. Tears were streaming down my cheeks and hardening along the way, causing painful crinkles in my skin when I screamed.

I avoided the driveway and ran straight for the woods where I thought I could lose him. Branches snapped at my flesh and I rapidly lost sensation in my feet but I was beyond terrified. A man had been slaughtered like a pig right in front of me. All I had done was stand by and watch because I was so head-over-heels for Pierre that I couldn’t bring myself to stop him.

If the police were called that meant he was gone forever. Even as I rushed through the forest, praying I would stumble across a semblance of civilization, my heart tried to turn me back around.

Dr. Holt killed Luke. My heart wrenched and the tears came harder when I thought of what my best friend’s last minutes were like. Was he tortured? Probably. Jesus Christ, Pierre had cut Miranda’s fucking hands off to try to scare Luke before going after him. He was off the wall insane.

My aimless running brought me to the edge of a muddy, dirty swamp that had frozen over. There was a frightening ring of trees around it and I turned in circles in the snow trying to figure out where to go next. The snow fell in a quiet sheet around me, obscuring the thick trees in the distance and making it very hard to see. I folded my arms over my chest and shivered miserably.

I looked down at the thick layer of ice and immediately locked eyes with the sockets of a human skull that had yet to be buried by the muck. The jaw was hanging open in an eternal scream.

I backtracked rapidly through the snow, shaking my head and covering my mouth to keep from yelling any more. I would make myself too obvious if I kept making noise. He’d find me in a heartbeat and slit my throat like he had done to Louis. Oh god. Oh god, please no. I’d finally found where I belonged and it felt like everything was getting better. I wasn’t ready to die.

The moment I bumped into Pierre his arms locked around me in a suffocating embrace. I scrambled desperately to escape but he easily turned me around to face him and locked his arms even tighter. My lungs were crushed and he held the back of my head lovingly when I started screaming again.

“Get off of me!” I shrieked. “You killed them! And you killed Louis!”

“Shh,” he whispered, “shh. Let’s go back home, Natalie.”

“Let me go, you stupid son of a bitch!”

I bit down on his shoulder to make him release me but Pierre didn’t react. I’d seen it before a long time ago: he was impervious to pain. He lifted me from the snow and the wind gnawed on my toes. We proceeded a few feet in the direction I had just come from and I wriggled in his grasp, shouting and wailing to be let go. He stroked my hair tenderly, humming the song.

The woods swallowed my frenzied protests. My wide eyes jolted about in their sockets in search of an escape as we gradually returned through the woods to the house. It was far more ominous in the midafternoon sun than it had ever been. Now it looked more like a place a group of teenagers died during a horror movie instead of a place of solace where I thought I spent time with the perfect man.

Inside the house, the knife was lying beside Dr. Purlieu’s corpse. I fought fiercely against Pierre upon seeing it and bit him wherever I could get my teeth but he didn’t react in the slightest. We began a slow procession up the stairs to the second floor where I had a strong feeling my life would end.

“No!” I screamed, flailing in his iron hold. “LET ME GO!” Tears flowed down my frostbitten skin and I buried my face in his shoulder. “Please don’t kill me. Please… please….”

The bedroom door creaked open when Pierre nudged it with his foot.

“I’m not going to kill you,” he said. “Not yet. But recent events have forced me to accelerate my plans, and I need you to do something very important for me. We don’t want the police following us about before I can take you from the country.”

When he tried to set me down on the bed I clung to the front of his shirt, weeping helplessly. My hands trembled and I stared into his indifferent eyes before leaning forward to cry against his chest. He was going to kill me eventually. When I was boring or old he was going to cut my throat.

“Please let me go,” I begged. “I want to go home.”

“Control yourself, Natalie. I need you to call your mother and the Amanda girl.”

“W-why?”

“To keep them off my tail, that’s why.” He withdrew my cellphone from his back pocket and placed it on the bed beside us. “You and I have fallen madly in love and decided to marry in France. You will go to college there but will not return for some time, if at all. The latter is at my discretion.”

I slapped Pierre across the face without another word.

He blinked at me and touched the wounded cheek, tongue rotating inside his mouth to feel the extent of the damage. I panted angrily and cocked my hand back to do it again but he caught my wrist mid-swing and pinned it above my head. I screamed again and Pierre smacked me hard enough to snap my neck to the left. I stared at the wall with tears in my eyes. What had I done?

His fingers wrapped around my jaw and he forced me to look at him. I was tempted to spit in his face but knew it would only serve to piss him off even further. The object was to stay alive.

“If you defy me or do not play your part well enough, I will kill you.” Pierre smiled coldly. “Afterwards, I will eviscerate your family and whatever friends you have scurrying about. We need to leave tomorrow before Louis’s wife calls the police about his disappearance. Chop, chop, Natalie. Time is of the essence and I am eager to proceed.”

My lower lip trembled. “Why did you do it? Why did you kill them?”

“Call your mother first.”

Pierre pushed me down on the bed so I was lying flat across it and offered me my cell phone with my mother’s number already dialed. He sat beside my legs and took my frigid feet in his hands to warm them, watching me like a hawk as the phone rang two painful times. He could snap my neck.

“Hello, Rivera household!” mom chimed. “Who is this?”

I was so stupid.


	24. I am the captain of my soul.

_“You’re… you’re marrying him?! Natalie, are you positive? I know you’ve really taken a liking to this man but you’ve hardly been with him for a month. Is this because of your father?”_

Mom had only been mildly surprised. At first she resisted and kept asking questions while I answered hollowly, unable to sound bright and cheery about my lie. Pierre snatched the phone from me when I began to cry and smooth-talked my mother all the way to her tearfully bidding me farewell. I watched in fascination as he brought fake tears to his eyes and promised to take good care of me.

Amanda reacted the same way and jokingly asked me to bring her along. Pierre chatted with her for a while as well and laughed while he massaged the sensation back into my feet. I stared blankly at my hands and tried to keep my mind from dissociating with my body. Dr. Holt was a murderer.

And I was in love with him.

He’d tortured my best friend to death; the first boy I had fallen in love with. He slaughtered Luke’s girlfriend like a pig and left him a gory gift behind for the sole purpose of frightening him. The news said Luke’s body had been mangled like a bear got him—even the police doubted a murder because they didn’t think anyone was capable of that kind of destruction.

The phone clicked shut and I jumped a bit. That was it. Everyone that could help me was off Pierre’s back and we would be long gone by the time the police began to suspect him of Dr. Purlieu’s murder. I flexed my hands and watched the lines on my trembling palms close together.

I wanted to go home so badly. My throat tightened and I covered my head with my arms to fall into another crying jag. I wanted my mom. I wanted Ralph. I wanted Sophie. I wanted my dad.

Pierre rose from the bed and I heard my phone fall to the carpet before being smashed under his shoe. He took them off and looked at me over his shoulder with a small smile. I slowly drew my legs closer to my body, dread creeping through my sinew and bones. He was crazy. Dr. Purlieu never told me why and I didn’t know how long it would take me to figure it out. What set him off?

He walked around the bed, keeping his glittering eyes trained on me, and I sank into the pillows. Only a few hours ago I hadn’t wanted anything more than his touch but now my stomach turned at the thought. My eyes widened when he began taking off his belt and rummaged through a drawer.

“I’ve already called Olivia,” Pierre said conversationally. “The girls are very excited to meet you, Natalie. I hope you’ll be polite until I find a suitable home for us. I was considering up north in the midst of the Adrennes. Charleville-Mézières is lovely.” He paused, furrowing his brow. “The Morvan Hills may be a better option to keep you from stumbling across neighbors. Perhaps we could go far south near Foix.”

I curled into a ball. I’d dreamt of visiting Europe for a long time but now I was beginning to hate the place. I didn’t speak their language and I didn’t know their culture. I would be hopelessly trapped.

A familiar flicker of red caught my eye and the blood drained from my face. Pierre draped the nightgown over his arm and shut the drawer to kneel down and search through the bottom one. I remembered Dr. Purlieu’s words when he first walked in; how he had been relieved I wasn’t wearing ‘the nightgown.’ I stared at the offending object and wondered what exactly it meant. It was definitely bad.

The duct tape came out of the bottom drawer and Pierre set it on the nightstand. I jerked backwards when he turned toward me with the nightgown, terrified of what was going to come next. Would he stab me in it? Was he going to choke me with it?

“Put this on,” he said.

If it were possible, that was the worst outcome. I shook my head but kept my lips firmly closed, afraid to verbally defy him at the present time. I wasn’t going to wear it. What if it belonged to one of the women he killed? Her blood could’ve been lurking in the fraying fabric.

The belt hissed free from its loops and I scrambled away from him only to succeed in falling off the bed. My heart thrummed at a dangerous rhythm when I saw Pierre twist his belt menacingly and I immediately made for a safe haven under the bed. It was a bit too narrow—I screamed as he dragged me back out and kicked at him in terror, tormented anew with inexplicable terror.

He rolled me over on my back. I kept screaming until his unyielding fingers grasped my jaw and shook my head violently back and forth, but I just kept shrieking like a banshee. My throat was raw beyond comprehension and Pierre laughed as he tightened his grip on my cheeks. He leaned close enough that I could see streaks of grey in his dark blue irises.

“Keep screaming,” he whispered, eyeing my mouth. “Mummy cannot possibly hear you and daddy is dead.” He pushed his thumb against my lips and smirked. “Latent Electra complex, perhaps? I could be your papa, Natalie. Would you like me to do that?”

My hands shuddered at my sides. Holy shit, he was fucking insane.

Pierre unbuttoned my haphazardly connected dress shirt and peeled it free from my body. I covered my chest while he pulled off the sweatpants and more tears pricked in my eyes when the red nightgown fell gracefully on my stomach. He leaned back to allow me to sit up and I tremblingly obeyed, pulling the slightly baggy nightgown over my head and adjusting the straps.

Then he rose, pulling me to my feet by my hair. He dragged me back around the bed to where the duct tape lay in the dying sunlight and I stood in silent fear when he tore a sizeable chunk off. He pressed it firmly to my mouth and gestured at my hands.

“Wrists behind your back,” he said. “I can’t have your hands wandering about.”

I would’ve cried and pleaded but my mouth was covered. I connected my wrists at the base of my palms behind my back and Pierre wrapped duct tape around them until he was positive I couldn’t free myself. He grabbed the back of my neck and pushed me forward toward the closet instead of the bed. I was a bit confused. Did he have some kind of Saw torture device inside?

The door slid open to reveal a perfectly normal closet with a bunch of random blankets and pillows lining the floor. A sense of nausea overcame me—what the hell was going on? Was I a pawn in some demented childhood memory or was he just trying to scare me?

Pierre shoved me into the closet and I dropped to my knees, unable to balance myself without my hands. I turned to watch him remove his clothes down to his boxers and he gazed at me impassively for several moments after with his hands on his hips. I wanted to scream. This wasn’t real.

He rubbed his chin idly and a smile crept across his mouth. “Don’t give me that look. I gave you ample warning the first time you came to my home and you chose to ignore it.”

Technically, he was right. I looked down at the blankets beneath me in shame and my hair fell around my face. Yeah, I could remember that odd aside during our conversation when he encouraged me to think twice before trusting him so easily. I’d overlooked so many things in my haste to be happy, ignoring obvious connections and the serious issue of him drugging me. Why did I ever rationalize that?

There was a soft thump in front of me followed be a click preceding the dreaded song. The closet door was closed until only a sliver of light came through the door and Pierre lay in front of it on his side to block my view. He grabbed my neck again to force me down as well and pulled the back of my body up against his front, making me shiver fitfully.

His palm ran up my thigh and each of his fingers slipped with torturous deliberateness into the front of my panties. I pushed my thighs together to keep him from moving further but he murmured a threat in my ear and I unwillingly loosened the space just enough to let him through.

The cursed fingers stroked across me, surprisingly gentle, and I shifted uncomfortably. My greatest comfort was that I couldn’t see him and he couldn’t see me—I could only feel what he was doing and make what I wanted of it. I closed my eyes to avoid staring at the bleak wall, struggling to control my body’s natural reaction. It was a terrible feeling not being in control of yourself.

Dr. Holt had killed my friends. He still hadn’t got around to telling me why, but I had my suspicions it was related to the bruises Luke gave me. That had really set him off.

Pierre briefly withdrew his hand. I heard him suck on his finger for a moment and it returned, promptly slipping along my slit and inside me. I whimpered into the duct tape: it still hurt. He carried on anyhow and soon his finger was stroking me in an awfully familiar way. I rotated my hips, unable to stop myself as tense warmth grew between my legs. No. I would do whatever it took to make sure that didn’t happen, even if I’d been starved of it twice now.

“You’re getting close, maman,” he whispered, lips touching my ear.

I shook my head furiously and turned away from him, burying my face in the blankets. Goddammit, stopping myself seemed so much easier in my head than it was in real life. My body wanted much more than a finger even as a second joined the first. I gritted my teeth together and choked on a sob.

He ground his arousal into my tailbone. “Come for me, Natalie.”

With a plaintive wail, I did what he commanded. I liked to think I could’ve held out longer if it wasn’t for how tightly wound I already was but I had no hope. The pleasure throbbed at its peak and I eagerly moved in tempo with Pierre’s hand, eyes rolling back. My insides pulled and squeezed his finger as I was temporarily freed from my burning lust in an all-too short but incredibly satisfying orgasm. I lazily flexed my hips as the plateau wore off to be replaced by heady exhaustion.

I heard Pierre’s fingers in his mouth again and he groaned. “Soon I will be able to feel you around me.” He suddenly grabbed my cheeks, pushing them together. “And this. I want to come in this mouth.”

Exhausted and quivering, I could only close my eyes and pray he didn’t do what he wanted. If he did I could easily bite down and maybe escape but if I didn’t escape he would definitely kill me. The best outcome was to pipe down and try to stop my post-orgasm panting. It would’ve been easier to hate him if I hadn’t spent so many weeks convincing myself of how perfect he was.

Pierre turned me to face him and I averted my gaze in shame. I was sweating a bit from writhing so much and I was sure that didn’t go unnoticed. He wrapped his arms around me, sliding down a bit to nuzzle his head between my breasts. My breath caught in my throat.

“He won’t find us here,” Pierre murmured. He curled into the fetal position and I stared blankly at the closet door. “Do you feel better, maman?”

Shit. I was probably supposed to lie.

I nodded spastically and he sighed like he was relieved. It wasn’t quite nighttime but from the way he was speaking it sounded like he wanted to go to bed already. ‘Au Clair de la Lune’ played quietly in the background while Pierre rubbed the fabric of the nightgown between his thumb and index finger, lulling me into a false sense of security. It was going to be a quiet evening.

The doorbell pealed.

Pierre’s head snapped up and his hazy blue eyes sharpened intensely but still held a touch of the suppressed insanity I had recently been introduced to. He looked over his shoulder, holding me to his chest like he was afraid I’d disappear, and there was a beat of silence. I could hear his heart pattering against his chest. At least he could feel fear, even if it was for a psychotic reason.

It rang again and he unwillingly got to his feet. He hauled me up as well and dragged me from the room, down the chilly hallway and the creaky stairs. I tried to keep my eyes away from Dr. Purlieu’s corpse and prayed whoever was visiting wouldn’t try to come in past the front door. Please don’t be someone I love. I hoped all of them stayed far away.

Dr. Holt scooped up the blood-encrusted knife from the floor and hid it behind his back to pull the door open and the guest immediately bustled inside the house.

My blood turned to ice.

Mom was wearing her best clothes: the black skirt dad bought her for their anniversary dinner the year before he died, a pretty pink blouse and heels that made her legs look even longer. She had done up her hair and was wearing some silver jewelry as well that brightened her skin. There was a thick photo album in her arms and I watched like a terrified deer as she turned her radiant smile to me.

The body on the floor never seemed to catch her eye. I could never forget the way her smile died in an instant when she saw me with my hands bound behind my back, screaming into the duct tape as Pierre smiled warmly and put his hand on her back to steady her body for the stabbing.

Mercifully, I had been sweating so much that my wrists wriggled free of the duct tape. I yanked mom away from him just in time and tore off the tape on my mouth. I stood protectively in front of her with my arms splayed out and panted heavily, horrified that I had nearly watched her die. It was the last time I would see my mother alive but she didn’t have to become another skeleton in the swamp.

I wouldn’t watch another person die in front of me. I wouldn’t stand idly by. I wouldn’t let my sickening love for Pierre keep my feet firmly planted on the ground.

“You’re not putting a hand on her,” I snarled.

Mom shrieked and suddenly she was hugging me. She had seen Louis. “Natalie, what the hell is going on?! Who is this on the floor?!”

Pierre scowled initially but his expression cooled and he casually tapped the blade of the knife against his cheek. “Oh? Are you certain you can save her?”

“I’ll do whatever it takes. I’ll die before I watch you kill her.”

“Ooo, feisty.” He watched the two of us for a moment longer and shrugged. “I suppose killing her will only make things more complicated. She can sleep in the basement this evening and you will tip off Amanda in the morning before we leave.”

I stamped my foot. “My mother is not sleeping in your basement!”

“Would you prefer I slit her throat?”

“She can stay in the guest room. End of discussion.”

“You’ve quite a bit of lip for being the one without the knife.”

It was a risky assumption but I had a feeling that Pierre couldn’t kill me if he wanted to. There was something else at work keeping him at bay and when he circled me irately like a hungry predator that intuition grew stronger. Yes, I was too important to die right now.

Mom didn’t say much when we went upstairs. She was trembling and I felt horrible but I could only push Pierre to do so many things. He had spared her life and I was afraid to ask for more.

Pierre bound her wrists and legs together with duct tape and dragged me from the room before I could say anything more. He locked the door behind us and tangled his fingers in my hair to pull me down the hall back to the bedroom, indifferently throwing me to the floor to shut and lock that door as well.

I pushed myself up on my palms, panting furiously, and the knife whistled past the side of my face in the blink of an eye. I stopped dead in my tracks and stared at the quivering blade buried in the carpet. Could I grab it and stab him? I didn’t know if I could kill someone, much less him. I swallowed hard and during my deliberations was grabbed by the hair once again.

“It’s safest for you in the closet,” Pierre said, throwing open the door. “He won’t find you.”

Tears pricked in my eyes from the brain. I was gonna go bald by the time he was through with me.

“What the hell are you jabbering about?” I snapped.

“I will wait by the bedroom door in the event he does come in. Sleep well, maman.”

He tossed me into the closet and shut the door again as I turned to try to escape. I heard the click of a lock—who the hell had locks on their closets?—and the shuffle of feet across the floor. I pounded on the door and screamed as loudly as I could but Pierre never returned.

I turned off the song before I went to sleep.


	25. Toward Tomorrow

Gentle tugging on my hair woke me the next morning. I squeezed my eyes even more tightly shut and shifted around to get more comfortable. Waking up wasn’t a particularly attractive option because I still remembered what was waiting for me in reality. He was probably lurking around waiting to spook me when I crawled out of the closet like a damn prisoner.

“Your hair was much lighter when you were younger, Natalie.”

My eyes popped open to see the scrapbook a foot or so away with an embarrassing page in full view that showed me when I was four. Lissome fingers were pressed to one of me baring my teeth in an ugly grin while I played in our old kiddie pool, chestnut hair framing my round face.

I slowly realized exactly what situation I was in. Pierre was lying behind me with one arm draped casually across my waist to flip the pages of the scrapbook. My head was on his other arm and those fingers were turning locks of my hair in absent corkscrews. He was bored, probably waiting for to wake up, and calmly looking through my old baby pictures like everything was normal.

My heart throbbed when his lips touched my neck tenderly. Shit. I needed to get a grip on myself. I had to remember all the horrible things he had done if I wanted to stay afloat.

I cleared my throat and reached up to rub my eyes, pleasantly surprised that my wrists weren’t bound together. “It kind of was, I guess.” Then I leaned forward to pull the scrapbook closer and closed it, humiliated by the pictures inside. “Let’s not look at this too much.”

“Why not?” he murmured into my ear. “You were so _cute_.”

“Can I have some goddamn space when I wake up?” I hissed, nervously squirming away. “Did you check on my mother? Is she okay?”

“A bit quiet but otherwise in one piece. It’s about time for us to leave, regardless.”

Pierre rose and left the closet with me trailing behind, clutching the scrapbook to my chest. I teetered toward the bedroom door and his cold eyes snapped over to me threateningly, so I rocked back on my heels and stayed where I was. Of course he was already dressed in the usual muted tones. There were some other clothes laid out neatly on the bed for me: jeans, a bra and camisole, and a pink long-sleeved shirt. A black jacket was folded beside them and boots were on the floor.

He beckoned me. “Come. Get dressed.”

I stood defiantly in place with my arms crossed. “Those clothes are ugly.”

“Now you’re just being difficult.”

“Let me see my mother and I’ll get ready.”

Dr. Holt rolled his eyes and the next thing I knew he had me pinned to the door by my throat. I glared at him, trying to feign bravery even as his grasp tightened enough to make my ears ring.

“You are in no position to bargain,” he said. “Do as you’re told or she dies.”

I gasped for air when he finally released me and grudgingly walked across the room to the bed. He stood like a sentry at the door while I put on the clothes, heart pounding. We were really leaving the country. I didn’t have an inkling of what France was like and that meant I would never see my family again. My job was over, my friendships were over, and the only thing I would have was Dr. Holt.

The thought of that was even more terrifying compounded with his insanity. I glanced at him standing a ways off, bewildered by that fact. He didn’t look the least bit crazy. He had good hygiene, a good job, and a fancy house in the middle of nowhere. The only thing that tipped me off was finding him in the basement singing a creepy lullaby to himself. I would’ve kept lying to myself if I hadn’t found him.

Speaking of which…

“So how exactly do you plan on living in France?” I asked as I pulled on the jacket. “If you’re leaving everything here you’ll have nothing when you get there.”

“I already have a position at the Pierre-and-Marie-Curie University. UPMC; Paris VI. They were quite eager to have me and will only require me to teach one class a week. Otherwise, I am free to conduct research and other oddities. My mother’s parents died some time ago and left me a bit of money. I do not need anything in this house that I cannot buy at a later date.”

“Whatever you say.”

We finished getting ready and went downstairs, where Dr. Purlieu’s body had since been moved. I squinted at the floor for any signs of blood but Pierre had scrubbed it spotless. He flicked off lights in the house and picked up a small black bag in the kitchen to stuff the nightgown in it. The ‘Au Clair de la Lune’ CD was sticking out of the top. I was very tempted to snap it in half.

Pierre put on a black trench coat and offered me the bag. “This is all we need. I’ve had a discussion with Mrs. Rivera and she has agreed to keep what she saw here a secret. She wouldn’t want anything to happen to her precious Natalie, of course.”

“You better not have touched her.”

“I didn’t have to. Her spine is frailer than yours.”

After we left Pierre texted Amanda to let her know, under the guise of being me, that my mother was waiting at his home. He sent her the address and smashed the phone on the ground but brought it along anyhow. I sourly slid into the passenger seat of his Audi and remembered how mesmerized by it I had been when we first met. He put on a good show.

The drive to the airport was long and horribly boring without a cell phone. I stared out the window for a while at the slush on the streets and the trees racing by and tried counting them to ease the monotony. Pierre was dead silent. I was relieved he hadn’t put the CD on.

When an hour had passed I couldn’t take it anymore. I groaned and began knocking my head slowly against the cold window, seriously considering opening the door and ending my misery. Why couldn’t he have been a more social lunatic? It was like someone took out his batteries.

“Don’t make such a fuss,” Pierre said offhandedly, slowing to a stop at a red light. “There will be plenty to amuse you on the plane. Perhaps you’d like a puzzle from the airport gift shop, hm?”

I’d been born a coward. It was hard to believe, considering my track record with parties, but I was sort of a spineless jellyfish willing to do whatever other people pleased. It was why I had fallen for Pierre’s charms so easily and why I silently let him do what he wanted.

But I knew I couldn’t afford to act that way anymore. If I wanted to survive, I had to be somewhat of a challenge but only enough to keep his curiosity piqued. Something about me was important to him and it would take a lot of pushing to make him kill me. I had a fair amount of freedom.

“You never answered my question,” I said. “Why did you kill Luke and Miranda?”

Pierre glanced at me irately. “You’re rather dense, aren’t you? The boy left bruises on you and the girl was collateral. She was not a fan of yours, by the way.”

“Yeah… that’s probably because she knew I was in love with her boyfriend.” I twisted my fingers, frowning. “So you care about me, then?”

“In the way a frat boy cares about his new Porsche, yes.”

“…I’m not sure if that’s a compliment.”

“It isn’t. Ah, here we are.”

The holidays had recently passed but the airport was still fairly busy. Pierre parked in the far side of the lot and took my hand when we got out of the car. I looked up at him, alarmed by the touch. Wasn’t that one of his golden rules?

“We’re engaged,” he said, tugging me along. “It would look suspicious if I was adverse to touching you. Our passports are in the bag along with money.”

“How the hell did you get me a passport?!”

Pierre didn’t answer. I fumed until we arrived in the main building where crowds of people with huge suitcases were rolling by across the highly polished floors. Mothers shouted for their children and fathers sat on benches watching football playing across the flat screen TVs. I pressed closer to Pierre, nervous in the midst of the incredible hubbub, and I thought I felt him shudder.

When we arrived at the gate bound for Paris, Pierre paused and reached into his inner jacket pocket. I waited, surprisingly calm given the situation, and watched the people running around. It was funny that none of them knew what was happening to me. If I screamed I might’ve been able to escape.

I felt his fingers on my left hand and turned my attention back to see a silver ring with a noticeably large diamond sliding up my ring finger. I blanched.

“We don’t look engaged if you aren’t wearing a ring,” he said, patting the top of my hand. Remember, Natalie: do as I say.”

While we waited in line I stared at the ring. How did engaged women act? Should I be fawning all over him or keep my cool? Pierre was dignified so it would make more sense if I acted the same way. I just had to keep my chin up and look down on the flight attendants and other people I came in contact with. If they asked me anything I would defer them to Pierre.

I could feel eyes on me. I glanced up from the dazzling ring and straight into Pierre’s amused expression. My cheeks burned and I quickly clasped my hands behind my back.

“Women are so fickle,” he said.

“If you put a giant sparkling rock on my finger I’m going to look at it.”

“Fickle.”

I wanted to insert a derisive comment about his own bad personality traits but we had arrived at the gate and the employee needed our passports. I rummaged through the bag and offered them to Pierre who in turn handed them to the short, balding man. A woman requested my bag so she could look through it and I obediently handed it to her.

We were cleared. I followed Pierre into the receiving room for the flight, nervously clutching my bag, and he seized my free hand in the blink of an eye. There were a few other people waiting but the flight was called and we didn’t stay for very long. He pulled me along through the crowd.

I was amazed at how well Pierre could blend with the other people. I’d always seen him as a flicker of light in the dark and he stood out in the crowd like a beacon. But in spite of that, not many people paid him much attention as he led me across the lot to the plane. He was awfully good at maintaining a low profile for being so attractive. People like him usually couldn’t escape attention.

It became more apparent when we boarded the plane and instead of joining the passengers in coach, we moved up towards first class. A pretty blonde flight attendant noticed him and she stopped in the middle of offering an older gentleman a drink to watch Pierre walk by.

There weren’t many seats and they were all high-backed. We took the ones immediately to the left of the entrance, which were padded with cream-colored upholstery. There was a divider between our huge seats and a countertop with a makeup mirror in case I needed to make myself pretty.

I collapsed in my seat and gawked at it all: there was a flat screen TV that showed the current flight and offered options for movies. Small lamps attached to the counter and the side of my compartment offered some extra light and a little minibar with some teeny bottles of champagne sticking out from the ice. I poked at them, enthralled. How cute!

Pierre took the outer seat and the flight attendant I had noticed was at our side in an instant. Her name was Felicity and she had long, red fingernails. She smiled radiantly at both of us and I sadistically hoped she would try to put her hand on his shoulder. I could see him shifting a bit, also acutely aware she might do so. C’mon, you know you want to…

“Welcome to first class, Miss Taylor and Mr. Holt,” she said. Her voice was at a nervously high octave. “May I get you anything to eat? A drink, perhaps?”

“I’m fine, thank you.” Pierre looked to me. “Natalie?”

I picked up one of the tiny champagne bottles and waved it around. “Don’t mind me; I’ll just be boozin’ in my corner.”

Felicity smiled tightly and left us.

I popped open one of the bottles and leaned back in my seat to start watching Disney movies. It was gonna be a long flight.


	26. Purgatory

_Tangled_ played across the flat screen in front of me. I’d already run through five Disney movies during the incredibly long flight—we had six hours left and I was getting bored of watching the same romance play out over and over. I snuck a clandestine peek at Pierre to see him reclined back with his eyes closed, hands clasped over his stomach. He looked kind of peaceful.

My eyes flickered down to the ring on my finger and I considered taking it off. Surely I wouldn’t need it anymore when we reached France? The people controlling the gates at Seattle’s airport hadn’t been too curious about our engagement so I doubted the foreign country would care much more. I arched my ring finger and was struck with a terrible sense of guilt. He’d killed people: lots of people. Was I just as evil for looking past that?

It was a pretty ring, after all. The band was thin and simple but the diamond in the center practically ejected light everywhere. I wondered how expensive it had been and more importantly, where the hell Pierre got all his money. State colleges didn’t pay well enough to buy two first class tickets to France and a new Audi. I narrowed my eyes at the ring. Hm…

I furtively reached into the overhead compartment to remove the bag with the few things Pierre insisted on bringing with us. The nightgown and ‘Au Clair de la Lune’ CD were right on top but when I moved deeper I felt the unfamiliar touch of money. Luna’s hadn’t paid particularly well. Curious, I pushed aside the edges of the bag to see exactly how much Pierre had brought along.

It had been rolled into a thick wad and rubber-banded together. I flipped aside the edge of the first bill, which should’ve been the smallest, and saw a ‘$100’ sign on the edge. Surprised, I continued flicking through the money and was repeatedly presented with 100s. What the _hell_?!

“Seeking out something in particular, Natalie?”

I jumped up at the sound of Pierre’s voice and puffed up indignantly.

“Can you stop spooking me?!” I snapped.

“No.” He opened one eye and looked at the bag. “What are you searching for?”

“I was curious to know how a professor at a state-funded college has enough money for this—” I gestured at the plane around us “—and this—” I pointed to the ring on my finger “—and the Audi you calmly left sitting in an airport parking lot. Are you a drug runner? Is that why you had Rohypnol in your bathroom and what I still suspect was cocaine?”

Felicity arrived before he could answer me. She asked if we wanted anything to eat again and I requested chicken but Pierre politely declined again. When she walked away, he stroked his lips with his fingertips and smirked at me. I zipped the bag shut and returned it to the compartment.

“She wants me,” he murmured when I turned back to face him. “What do you think? Dare I appease her? I’ve done it once before but they’re always so eager to touch me that I stray away now.”

“Of course you’re in the Mile High Club. I hope she touches you.”

The flight attendant returned with my food a few minutes later and I ate eagerly at first but slowed down when I felt Pierre watching me. He leaned his chin into his palm and stared at each piece of chicken I put in my mouth. The plane was so quiet that I could hear my chewing above all else.

“Why don’t you answer my questions instead of watching me eat?” I suggested. “It’s honestly one of the creepiest things you’ve done, just short of drugging me for no reason.”

“It’s very rude to ask a man how he gets his money. I invest, save, and do my job competently. I do not work for a drug cartel and I certainly am not taking cocaine.” He tilted his head, smiling. “I am a model citizen, darling. It’s why I am the last person any police officer would suspect.”

“Then how did you get your hands on Rohypnol? That’s illegal to possess.”

“There are plenty of people selling plenty of drugs. Oh, and the white powdery substance you noticed on the sink was GHB. It’s a naturally occurring substance in the nervous system and I gave it to you the evening you forcibly kissed me. For shame, Miss Taylor. I was in no place to consent.”

That was the night I had felt different from the others; when I became incredibly horny and happy. The previous two made me black out and get sick so I assumed they were influenced by Rohypnol, not the GHB or whatever Pierre was talking about. I stuffed a green bean in my mouth, scowling.

“You’re incorrigible,” I said.

“I consider it to be a virtue.”

We descended back into silence until the flight had reached France. I looked out the window at the clouds around us and squinted, trying to see my new homeland.

The airport terminal looked like any other. Pierre held my hand tightly and rattled off French to passerby who smiled at us, and I was shocked by all of their friendliness. People kind of avoided looking at one another in America but at least a dozen men and women had said ‘bonjour’ to Pierre and I while we walked through the huge airport. I couldn’t believe it.

We passed through customs and I was officially legally permitted on French soil. I looked around and stuck to Pierre’s side like a burr while he idly took out a cell phone and dialed someone. They spoke for a few minutes and he laughed at one point but I hadn’t magically gained the ability to speak French.

It was cold and dark outside but not snowing. There were a ton of people in long, fancy coats and I couldn’t help but notice almost all of the men wore belts and none of them had anything baggy on. Even in Seattle there were people who looked worse for wear yet that didn’t seem to be a problem in Paris. I leaned up on my tiptoes stupidly hoping to see the Eiffel Tower lit up.

A cab brought us to a train station and I kept awkwardly turning in circles to get a look at everything around me. It wasn’t so bad. The people were fairly friendly, I was with someone who spoke the language, and their weather wasn’t abominable. I shivered and pressed closer to Pierre.

When we were sitting on the train I started to get much antsier. We were meeting with his cousin and the rest of his French side of the family for a while until Pierre found a house. After that, it was all up in the air. I knew he had a job but what did that mean for me? Would I be kept inside all day or would he let me have some freedom? There were plenty of things to do.

“Where are we going, anyway?” I asked.

“Senlis.” Pierre glanced at his watch. He was holding the bar above my head and standing possessively behind me so the other passengers couldn’t come near.

“Descriptive,” I muttered.

The train jolted and I squealed, nearly falling over my own two feet, but Pierre caught me around the waist with his free arm before I made a fool of myself. Pierre said something in French that had ‘American’ mixed in and a few people snickered in response. I was tempted to bite him.

Though Paris had otherwise impressed me I wasn’t sure how I felt about the public transportation system. I’d never liked relying on it but I doubted he would let me get a car. We got off about an hour later at our final stop and I tiredly followed Pierre out of the station and into Senlis.

The cobblestone streets captured my heart immediately. Pierre grabbed my hand again to keep me from straying and I excitedly looked around at the tall, beautiful buildings with vines draping down them. There was a church towering above everything with intricate details towards the top. I was in Europe now, the place where modern society had really begun. The United States didn’t have that kind of detailed history because it was a mere 200 years old.

There was plenty of light cast by the street lamps and a few children scurried past us, laughing and dressed to the nines. I gazed after them and admired the little girl’s pretty green dress before she vanished around the corner with the two boys, both holding onto their hats. I smiled. I’d always liked kids, something I figured I got from mom.

We arrived in front of a huge home that looked more like a castle. It was separated from the others, not an ancient box-shape but instead composed of two large towers that jutted into the street. There was a driveway that wound around to the back and a hedge in the front that had recently been trimmed. Wrought iron gates protected it from curious passerby.

The massive front door suddenly flew open, spilling light into the street, and a woman ran down the steps and across the cobblestone to us. Pierre stepped back, clearly worried she was going to hug him but she darted past him and instead wrapped her arms around my neck.

I was trapped in a sweet smelling perfume and my face was in thick, black hair that hung in long tresses around the woman’s shoulders. Pierre released my hand so I could steady myself and hug her back.

“Welcome to Senlis, Natalie!” she chimed. “It’s very nice to have you here!”

Pierre tapped his foot. “Olivia, what have I told you about needlessly hugging strangers?”

The woman stood back and held my biceps, beaming. She had the same exotic beauty to her that Pierre did but her skin was rather pale instead of tanner like his. Pink lipstick made her plump lips pop even more and the casual outfit she was wearing: jeans, an off-the-shoulder sweater and slouchy boots—didn’t detract from her beauty in the least. We were the same height but she was more slender.

“I have to hug someone when you come to visit,” Olivia said, brushing something off my shoulder, “and that’s off the table with you, so Natalie was the unfortunate victim.”

Her accent was much heavier than Pierre’s but her English was perfect. If I remembered correctly, most European kids learned their national language and English as well; sometimes a third.

Loud squealing interrupted us and two blonde-haired children came flying out of the house next dressed only in matching pink nightgowns. Each one attached to either of Pierre’s legs and my eyes widened in shock. Uh oh, didn’t Olivia know touching was off-limits?

“Manon! Camille!” Olivia rebuked. “Where are your shoes?!”

They were definitely twins. I watched incredulously as Pierre scooped up the smaller one in his arms and she grabbed his face to kiss him on the temple. The bigger girl was promptly grabbed by Olivia and brought back inside while Pierre and I followed. I continued staring at the little girl resting her head on his shoulder in utter shock. What the hell?

Inside, the house opened up to a huge receiving room. The floor was black and white tiled and highly polished so it reflected the chandelier overhead. Two enormous staircases curved up to the top floor, ringing by a wrought iron railing. A dog emerged from the room on the right and bounded toward the little girl when Pierre set her down on the floor and she ran off, shrieking happily. The bigger girl clung to her mother and chewed her nails, watching me with hazel eyes.

Olivia put her hand on the child’s head. “Natalie, this is my daughter, Manon. She was older than her sister by several seconds: Camille is the more rambunctious one. My newborn, Adrien, is asleep upstairs with his father I do believe. We’re very excited to have you visit! Pierre has never brought a girl here.” Her eyes flickered down to my hand. “And with a ring on her finger!”

I was tempted to tell her why but kept my mouth shut and smiled politely.

It was decided we would do the grand tour in the morning after Pierre and I had slept off our jet lag. Olivia was mildly surprised he hadn’t brought anything along but didn’t linger upon it. She brought us upstairs to the left end of the long hallway where a door with a decorative gold knob was closed. I thanked her for her hospitality and she bid both of us a good night.

The room was dark and huge. A thick beige carpet comforted my aching feet and the curtains on the massive window were closed to keep out the moonlight. There was a walk-in closet and nightstands on either side of the bed that spanned across the room, blanketed in blue sheets. A flat screen TV hung opposite the bed on the eggshell white wall over a tall, ornate dresser. There was a door beside the closet that I hadn’t noticed, probably leading to a bathroom. Good. I needed a shower.

When I opened the bathroom door I heard something clink on the dresser across the room. Pierre was standing before it with his sleeves pulled back, watching me standing in front of the bathroom. A smile touched the corners of his lips and he began unbuttoning his shirt.

“What?” I asked, shrinking back.

“Are you taking a shower?”

“Duh. I was just in a plane for eleven hours.”

“I’ll join you.”

My hand slipped off the doorknob. “W-What?! No, you won’t!”

He slipped his shirt off and took off the grey t-shirt underneath, placing both on the dresser beside his watch. The low light from the moon cast a shadow across his collar bone and the edges of his Adonis belt emerged when he unbuckled his belt. I stood in place, mesmerized. His body was the type you saw in movies, not on real men. If I wasn’t gawking at it I would’ve thought I was dreaming.

Pierre removed his socks. “Are you _blushing_ or has the altitude gone to my head?”

I hurriedly slipped inside the bathroom, shutting and locking the door behind me. It was just as over-the-top as the bedroom with a big modern shower that had a waterfall style sprayer in a beam across the top. There were clean pajamas and panties on the sink with a piece of chocolate. Was I in a hotel?

“You have to come out some time,” Pierre purred on the other side of the door. “I’ll be right here waiting when you do. Don’t forget to take off your ring, mon chouchou.”

“I’ll show you a shoeshoe,” I said belligerently.

Fingers ran along the door. “You’re becoming a plucky little thing, aren’t you? I think I’ll keep that smart mouth of yours otherwise occupied this evening.”

While I took my shower, I toyed with different ways I could sleep on the linoleum floor.


	27. Paradise

Steam billowed around me while I dried off after my shower. It certainly helped lift my spirits and a quick brush of the teeth with one of the spares beneath the sink was an even greater boon. I wrapped my hair in another towel and made sure each button on my pajamas was securely fashioned. We were in a house with a bunch of family members so I doubted Pierre would actually do anything. I’d make as much noise as possible to alert someone.

But I still moved very slowly when I opened the door. I peered out into the dark room to see Pierre with his back facing me, lying on the bed, and a news report about the Nikolai guy from Rhode Island playing in the background. His face had been plastered everywhere as of late. Pierre was probably one-hundredth as crazy as that dude, and that was saying something.

I tiptoed out of the bathroom to the dresser to let out my hair and rub away the residual moisture. It was nice and warm in the house and I had a lot of questions for Olivia. Was it a childhood home? What did she do for a living? What did her husband do? How long had she known Pierre?

For now, it was safe to ask those kinds of things. I glanced over my shoulder at Pierre, now turned over on his stomach, and traced the lines of the muscles in his back. Would I ever know how many people he had killed? I wasn’t sure how I would cope with the day-to-day of living with a serial killer and I didn’t know how much time I had left. I bit the side of my mouth ruefully. It could be a few days or years.

When Camille was in his arms she had brazenly grabbed his cheeks to kiss him on the temple. I wasn’t jealous of a four year old but more shocked than anything else. Children could touch him. Manon had clamped to his leg until Olivia forced her to let go as well and Pierre didn’t bat an eye. I would’ve thought he hated the roaming, sticky hands on children more than anything else. They were fairly messy and loud, the utter opposite of Dr. Holt.

My eyes widened. What if he’d killed kids? Oh god, what if he… did things to them? That could’ve been why he was fond of Olivia’s children running around him like they’d been snorting sugar.

I fanned out my hair and shook my head as I walked to the bed. There were so many variables at play; so many places where my thought processes could derail and send everything out of control. I carefully crept underneath the covers beside Pierre and noticed his hair was damp. He’d showered elsewhere.

“Good,” I muttered, “now I don’t have to deal with you.”

My eyes closed peacefully and I drifted off to sleep…

To be awoken some time later being dragged out of bed by my hair.

Bewildered by my exhaustion, I could only blink stupidly as I collapsed on the floor in a heap of limbs with foreign fingers knotted in my hair. I panted in fear and twisted my neck to see Pierre pulling me into the huge closet, covered in a sheen of sweat. His eyes looked vacant.

The floor was mercifully empty and the door shut behind us. I scrambled backwards, afraid he was going to kill me, and Pierre climbed on top of me, wrestling down my flailing limbs and covering my mouth when a faint cry escaped from within. He leaned his weight on me, nuzzling his head underneath my neck like a cat looking for attention. I kept my free hand firmly pinned to my side. He would go ballistic if he caught me touching him again.

“Much safer,” he sighed, deep voice rumbling. “Goodnight, maman.”

Somehow, I fell back asleep.

____________________________________________

“Maman, Uncle Pierre is doing it again.”

“Hush, Manon. Go start breakfast with everyone.”

I groggily opened my eyes to see Olivia standing at the closet door in a long white nightgown with her arms folded over her chest. Her eyes were wide but she smiled faintly when our gazes crossed.

I’d turned on my side during my sleep and there was a mess of black hair underneath my chin. Confused, I blinked blearily a few times and registered my arms were wrapped around another person’s body who was still breathing with the soft inhalations of sleep. I realized with dread exactly who it was.

Pierre had curled into the fetal position during his sleep. His arms weren’t around me but were coiled back, hands splayed over top of one another in an exact mirror on an infant in the womb. I immediately detached my grasp and Olivia jerked back like she was afraid he might explode.

“Be very careful,” she whispered. “He mustn’t know you saw him like this.”

It was frightening and sad seeing him in such a position. I gently released him and wriggled away to give myself enough space to stand up and Pierre didn’t bat an eye. Olivia stepped back to let me out of the closet but I paused to watch him one last time, wondering what the hell kind of trauma had led to his behavior. Maybe it was better for me to never know.

We left the room on tiptoes and closed the door behind us. Only then did I heave a sigh of relief and know we had successfully escaped. He would wake up alone and think none of us knew.

“Has he been doing that for very long?” Olivia asked. She covered her mouth and paused in the middle of our walking. “Oh, I’m so sorry! That’s none of my business.”

I shrugged. “It’s alright, I’m getting accustomed to his… um… quirks. I’ve noticed he has a thing for closets, though. I’m not really sure why—probably some latent trauma.”

“…I see.” Olivia escorted me down the stairs, furrowing her brow. “We’ve been having Pierre visit since Aunt Cecilia died when he was 16. My grandparents didn’t know of his existence until the American courts alerted them. Cecilia was not welcome home but they were eager to accept Pierre. Anyway, over the years I’ve seen him do that several times. It’s gotten worse.”

We walked down to the enormous kitchen that had a rustic wooden floor and all sorts of historic décor. It was big, probably amassing one whole side of the lower floor, and a blonde-haired man with an apron was standing in front of the open-range stove. He turned to acknowledge us and beamed at Olivia. Manon and Camille were standing by his legs watching him cook and baby Adrien was hanging from his back with his head lolled lazily to the side.

Olivia smiled. “Natalie, this is my husband, Tobias. He is a German immigrant who I had the fortune of meeting during one of my trips to Paris.”

“Guten Morgen,” Tobias said, waving the spatula in his hand in friendly greeting. His voice was rough, much different from Pierre’s and Olivia’s. “It’s lovely to have you here, Natalie. Would you like anything in particular for breakfast?”

“I wanna make pancakes for Aunt Natalie!” Manon insisted, leaning up on her tiptoes.

“Me too!” squealed Camille.

I laughed and nodded. “Pancakes sound great. Thank you, girls.”

Olivia sat down with me at the antique wooden table, complete with a matching set of carved chairs. It was beautiful. Parts of the kitchen were still made of stone from when the home had been built and there was a sliding glass door leading out into their backyard. The dog wagged his tail in front of it until Manon let him out and she watched with delight as he ran around in the grass.

It was extremely hard to believe a serial killer had come from such a pleasant family.

“This is a gorgeous house,” I said.

Olivia brightened. “Thank you! It belonged to my grandparents. My grandfather was a decorated war hero who invested well and grandmother was a brilliant scientist. We think that’s where Pierre got it from, because my mother and her brother are both very average. Uncle Mathis owns his own vineyard and my mother, Ines, creates her own jewelry. My father, Evan, is an architect.”

Goddamn. That certainly explained the nice house.

“What do you do?” I asked. “And Tobias?”

“Tobias stays home with the girls. I’m a realtor and quite good at what I do.” She grinned and looked over her shoulder at Camille standing beside Tobias, carefully making pancakes. “He’s a much better homebody than I am. I’m not sure if I can even sew, let alone cook.”

“Me neither. I’m terrible with those kinds of things.”

We chatted for a long time about general things: how I liked France, what I was studying in school, and how long I intended to stay. I wasn’t sure if I should mention Pierre and I were ‘engaged’ so I didn’t bother mentioning it and instead detailed how we had met while I was in his astronomy class. Olivia laughed at loud when I told her he had been the one to encourage me.

Manon suddenly spun around and shrieked. “Uncle Pierre!”

I watched calculatedly as the little girl darted from the glass doors to the doorway of the kitchen and leapt into Pierre’s arms, causing him to stumble back. Olivia wasn’t concerned, Tobias only chuckled to himself, and Camille impatiently climbed down from her stool.

He allowed Manon to kiss him and when he set her down on the floor Camille did the same. Adrien’s eyes popped open and he squirmed in his carrier, whining a bit. Olivia rose to tend to him and Pierre sat in the seat on the other side of me, rubbing his eyes tiredly. He had put the grey shirt back on and black sweatpants. He glanced over his shoulder to see if anyone was watching before leaning close to me, sliding his palm over my thigh.

“You’re lucky I fell asleep last night,” he murmured. “When I find a home for us—”

“Oh, Pierre!”

Both of us turned when Olivia’s voice interrupted his threat. She held up an official-looking envelope with some French written on it and smiled.

“I suppose I should visit the bank this afternoon,” he said.

“I highly suggest it.” Olivia held a cup of coffee between her long fingers and smiled. “I think I’ll bring Natalie to Paris while you work out the finer details of grandmother’s inheritance. Don’t you?”

“Sounds good to me!” I said quickly.

Pierre rubbed his beard and glared down at me while I ate. Manon sat on my other side and Camille insisted on sitting in Pierre’s lap and played with his watch while he ate. It was perplexing to me that he was comfortable with the kids being all over him. Why?

We finished breakfast and Olivia brought the girls to their bedroom on the other end of the hall to get them ready for the day. They were staying with Tobias for the afternoon so Olivia and I could have a quiet day of shopping in the City of Lights. I lagged behind Pierre, running my fingers along the freshly painted walls and admiring how beautiful the house was. I’d have to explore it later on.

There were clothes already waiting on the bed. I turned around a few times, wondering if the Moreau home housed ninjas. That was Pierre’s grandparents’ last name. It had a nice ring to it. His mother had been ‘Cecilia Moreau’ before she married and became a Holt. Olivia’s last name was Durand until she married—now it was Bauer.

“Who keeps putting out these clothes?” I asked, checking out the pretty outfit.

“The maid, I would assume, unless my cousin has gained the ability to phase through walls.” Pierre stood behind me and put his hands on my shoulders. “Enjoy your time in Paris, Natalie.”

“Could you repeat that without sounding creepy?”

His fingers closed around the back of my neck and squeezed. “Enjoy your time in Paris, Natalie.”

“Okay, now I know you’re threatening me.”

“Only a little. We’re going to be quite a few miles apart and that upsets me on a basal level. I wouldn’t want you… wandering off in the direction of the airport, or perhaps following a nice man with some shiny trinket into an alleyway. Being oblivious to your precise position is acutely uncomfortable.”

“Too bad?” I squeaked.

“I suppose. I can’t exactly refuse Olivia without causing a stir.” He tightened his grasp again and I felt his breath on my collar bone. “I loathe not being in control and you have been depriving me of it for much too long. This house’s damnable thin walls will keep you safe for a bit longer. I sincerely hope you enjoy this taste of freedom while it lasts because I am a violent and unforgiving sadist.”

I struggled away from him, stumbling around the side of the bed. Pierre’s cold blue eyes followed me all the way to the bathroom with my clothes draped over my arm. My heart was racing.


	28. Elysium

When I emerged from the bathroom, Pierre promptly offered me the entire bundle of money from the bag. He was dressed and had shaved a bit but that only made the cocky smile on his mouth even more infuriating. I slapped his hand away and stormed to the dresser to check my hair one last time in the small mirror. I was beginning to hope he would kill me. All the stupid games he played were infuriating.

Pierre walked up behind me; idly tossing the wad of money up and down like it was a very expensive baseball. “Why are you so aggressive today, mon chouchou? I’d like you to find something pretty for our first evening together in our new home. Preferably something that will tear easily.”

“I’m not taking money from you.”

“You accepted the ring easily enough.” He cocked his head and I felt his fingers slide into the hem of my jeans. “We could work out a more suitable arrangement. Would your conscience feel cleaner if I slid them in your panties while you danced for me? A service for a service.”

I put an extra bobby pin in my up-do, fuming. “Will you leave me alone? I’m going to be in your dirty basement all day so who cares what I wear?”

“Well I won’t keep you there all day. That would be inhumane.”

I turned around to push past him and Pierre pinned me against the dresser. He brushed a stray lock of hair from my face and pushed the wad of money between my breasts, making sure to pat them tauntingly before letting me go. He strode across the room to his jacket and watched me angrily withdraw the money to shake it in the air.

“Someone will murder me for this!” I spluttered. “Is that what you’re going for?”

“You’re right. Give me half to put in the bank. I might as well while I’m there this afternoon.”

_“That’s still too much goddamn money for me to carry!”_

He pulled on his jacket and rolled his eyes. “Fine. Come here.”

As promised, most of the money was taken but that still left me with way too much. I kept my hand on it while Olivia and I rode the train to Paris and furtively glanced about. I stood out like a sore thumb. Olivia was calm and gazing out the window as the landscape raced past but I was shifting on my feet, examining the train car with wide eyes. I screamed ‘tourist’.

The city was like any other major metropolis: parts were stunning and others were lackluster. Olivia knew her way around very well and kept me from getting into trouble, including dragging me away from Bohemian pickpockets. I liked her a lot. She was down to earth and reasonable and much easier to talk to than Pierre, of course. It was a relief to be in the company of another woman.

We went to several stores and I picked out a few things but tried to keep my spending down to a minimum. I knew I would feel awkward carrying tons of bags around. Olivia did some shopping herself, mostly new clothes for Adrien and Camille, who was constantly getting dirty outside.

Around four o’clock we settled down in a small restaurant for an early dinner and squealed over all the cute baby clothes Olivia intended on dressing her son in. He was a cute little thing and I was excited to go back to her home to hold him. Babies were cute as long as I could hand them back to their parents.

Olivia popped a piece of chicken in her mouth, smiling. “So, that’s a nice ring you’re wearing.”

I glanced down at the ‘engagement’ ring Pierre had given me. It was a farce but seemed to work pretty well. Why else would he bring a woman all the way from the United States to live with him?

“Yeah,” I said, “it is.”

“Are you two engaged, then?”

I shrugged sheepishly and spun my pasta around my fork. “I’m not really sure. Pierre is kind of confusing and vague sometimes. It doesn’t matter to me either way.”

“You remind me a lot of our cousin Alexandre. He’s Uncle Mathis and Aunt Christine’s, god rest her soul, son. You two would probably get along very well, but Pierre and Alex aren’t the best of friends. I’m not sure why… maybe they’re too serious for one another. Quentin would like you, too.” She looked up and nodded, scrutinizing me. “Yes, definitely. He would.”

“So you guys have a pretty big family, then.”

“Complicated describes us much better,” Olivia grumbled. “Uncle Mathis lost his wife, Christine, about eight years ago. The two had two children: Florence and Alexandre. Alex is a single father and Flo is… um… unique. She had a son named Noam when she was 16 but eventually met and married Anthony. They have a daughter together named Eloise. We never see Noam’s father, Vincent.”

“And Pierre’s parents are both dead. He has no siblings, right?”

“None that we know of. But we’re all fairly certain that Paul Holt isn’t Pierre’s biological father. Grandma Moreau was positive Cecilia left this country already pregnant.”

The bread I was nibbling on dropped to my plate. “ _What_?!”

Olivia stopped dead in the middle of cutting her chicken and jerked back in her seat, covering her mouth in horror. “Oh no! Please don’t say a word of that to Pierre!”

The pleasantries were over. It was time to get answers.

“Pierre isn’t American at all?” I pressed, genuinely curious.

My new friend shielded her eyes but nodded. “My mother thinks she was pregnant, too. We aren’t sure if she tricked Paul into marrying her or if he understood her circumstances. Aunt Cecilia was a very troubled woman and when she left for America she was not exactly welcome in our family. Alexandre was born and grandma was worried—”

A gentle tap on the window interrupted Olivia. Both of us looked over to see Pierre standing outside with one hand on his pocket and the other still suspended to knock again. I glared at his dark blue eyes turned fondly to his cousin, trying to lull her into a false sense of security. What happened with Cecilia? Why were they worried when Alex was born?

“Not a word of this to Pierre,” Olivia whispered urgently as he entered the restaurant.

I nodded and moments later he slid into the seat beside mine. He kissed me chastely on the temple and my skin crawled where his lips brushed.

“I presume your outing was enjoyable?” he asked.

“Very!” Olivia said, perking up. “I bought the cutest little shoes for Adrien. Quentin’s birthday is coming up as well so I bought him some toys and whatnot. Will you go to his party, Pierre?”

Pierre scowled. “No.”

“You’re so miserable sometimes. When you and Natalie have children, no one will want you present.”

I immediately started choking on the chicken in my mouth. Pierre offhandedly patted me on the back until I got a grip and heaved for air, clutching my throat. Jesus Christ. There was nothing more horrifying than the thought of raising the hellspawn of Pierre Holt.

“She startles easily,” he said when Olivia began to apologize.

Dinner was otherwise uneventful. We paid our tab and left for Senlis with our new things and Pierre chatted with Olivia most of the way. He was such a social butterfly with his family. I sourly stared at my reflection and for a brief moment, I could see the gaping skull drowned in his personal graveyard.

Nothing justified taking innocent lives. No trauma or shyness could ever excuse Pierre for needlessly killing innocent people. I watched him talk with Olivia from the corner of my eye and shifted my bags. He’d never told me exactly how many he killed, but I assumed they were all women. He had it out for us. Kids were fine and even men weren’t on the radar. Women were his prey of choice.

My confusing feelings for him couldn’t get in the way. I had to either devise a plan of escape or figure out how to fix him, if that was even possible. It didn’t seem like it was. He had a penchant for closets and ‘Au Clair de la Lune’ and he only drugged me for the feeling of control. He’d plenty of opportunities to force himself on me but he was restraining himself, probably waiting for a particular moment.

Something very frightening would be waiting for me when Pierre bought a house. It was important that I clung to what I had and braced myself for what was going to come.

When we arrived home Manon and Camille were on Pierre in seconds and nearly dragged him to the ground. I walked along with Olivia, enjoying the early nightfall, when I suddenly remembered a word I desperately wanted translated. I touched her elbow and she paused, head tilted.

“Can you tell me what ‘maman’ means?” I asked. “And ‘chouchou’.”

She puckered her lips. “Well, ‘chouchou’ is a term of endearment. It has several meanings but usually means ‘pet’ or ‘darling’. ‘Maman’ is our version of ‘mom’. It’s informal. ‘Mère’ is our version of ‘mother’. Why do you ask? Ooo, does Pierre call you ‘chouchou’? Très mignon!”

A cold shiver rippled down my spine. Okay… that made everything a hell of a lot weirder. He’d mumbled it a few times when we were fooling around and… oh, it was too weird. I folded my arms over my chest and followed him with Olivia, watching with increasing revulsion as he held Manon and Camille’s hands. Maybe he was a pedophile. I could’ve been a stand-in or something.

We stepped inside the warm house and it felt like all hell had broken loose.

A tall blonde woman with her hair cut in a short bob appeared from literally nowhere and darted toward Pierre with her arms wide open. He jerked back and Olivia quickly stepped in the stranger’s way to intercept the embrace that would certainly send Pierre into a furious tailspin. Manon and Camille squealed with joy at the sight of a small brunette girl with pigtails and they abandoned Pierre to hug her.

“Let me hug my favorite cousin!” the blonde woman laughed. She was a bit heavier than the others and had the same perfect shape to her body that Olivia did. Her features were softer and felt more American to me, but her bright green dress looked like it belonged on a European supermodel.

“Control yourself, Florence!” Olivia snapped. “Anthony! Get out here!”

A short man with a nervous look appeared from the kitchen and gently patted Florence on the back, accepting her from Olivia when she finally relaxed. The girls were all running up and down the stairs shrieking while the dog chased them and I noticed Pierre sidled behind me to observe. I wanted to turn around and call him a coward but Florence finally set her blue eyes on me and gasped.

“Is this Natalie?” she asked. “It’s very nice to meet you, dear!”

I awkwardly nodded. “Um… hi.”

Florence seemed to remember the girls and turned around in one swift motion. “Eloise! Stop running around like a hooligan and come introduce yourself! Eloise is my seven year old.”

The brunette girl perked up and bounded over, lanky and tall and very unlike her parents. She had the same blue eyes and politely introduced herself before running off again. Florence scowled but allowed her to go and turned back to beam at me. I shuffled uncomfortably. She was… gregarious.

“Is that a ring I see?!” she exclaimed, bustling forward to lift up my left hand currently supporting a few bags. “Ooo, Senlis has many beautiful churches you two can marry in!”

“As always, it’s a pleasure to see you, Florence,” Pierre said derisively.

“Noam is upstairs keeping Quentin entertained,” Florence continued, ignoring her cousin’s rude comment. “Alexandre should be with them, too. Why don’t you join them, Natalie? Pierre has some explaining to do before he can join you.”

Pierre glared at me as Florence beckoned him to the kitchen along with the others. Shit. He couldn’t blame me for something I had no control over.

I walked up the elegant staircase to the second floor and dropped off my things in the bedroom before searching for the other two kids. There were two more bedrooms on my side and another bathroom, and on the opposing side there was a door to the master bedroom and two doors facing each other down the hall a little ways. A third door closer to the stairs caught my attention and I heard the giggles of a small child inside, prompting me to enter.

It was a large playroom with a thick blue carpet and too many toys to count. There were things from pillar to post, organized neatly but nonetheless covering every square inch of the place. I stepped over a train set and carefully approached two people sitting together on the floor.

The older one turned around first. He had pitch black hair like Pierre but brown eyes, and he looked like your run of the mill teenage boy. He was wearing dark clothes and had one ear pierced. It was probably Noam, the kid Florence had when she was 16.

Quentin, Alexandre’s son, acknowledged me next. He had light brown hair and eyes that were so light blue they seemed grey. He blinked at me a few times. He was lanky, like both Noam and Eloise, but appeared to be older than the girl. I guessed he was nine.

“Hi,” I said after a beat. “I’m Natalie, Pierre’s… girlfriend. It’s nice to meet both of you.”

“Dad told me Uncle Pierre only dates men, though,” Quentin said innocently.

“Quentin!” Noam hissed.

I laughed and sat down behind them, curious to see what they were doing. “It’s okay; I sort of assumed the same thing when I met him. What are you guys up to?”

It was a 1000 piece puzzle. All of us started chatting and both of them were very pleasant. Noam was 17 which made me feel even weirder about being around Pierre and as assumed, Quentin was nine. He was a cute kid and much more well-behaved than the girl had been.

The door opened a while later and Quentin turned, immediately brightening. “Hi, dad!”

A tall man was peering into the room but stepped inside when he noticed his son. He had slightly curly brown hair and quite a bit of facial hair. He was attractive—that much I had to admit—and was wearing a grey sweater with khakis. But his face was different from the others like Florence’s has been. He had a less regal appearance and felt more approachable somehow.

Quentin leapt to his feet and ran over to hug his father. Noam waved in greeting but kept on with the puzzle while I kept admiring the newcomer. It had to be Alexandre. He looked nice.

“I’m Natalie,” I said when he finally looked at me. “Nice to meet you.”

Alex sat beside me on the floor, brow furrowed. Quentin took his spot across from us.

“I thought Olivia was joking when she told me he was bringing someone home,” he said. He had no trace of an accent. “You’re an American, right? Washington State? Did you like it there?”

“For the most part. I like being outside and that’s a year-round thing there, so it was nice being able to go hiking or snowshoeing or kayaking whenever I wanted.” I puckered my lips and slid a piece of the puzzle into place, pleased with myself. “What about you? Big fan of France?”

But Alex didn’t seem to hear my question. “You like to hike?”

“Yeah. Being outside in general is nice.”

“You’ll have to come to the Alps, then. I would say we could attempt Mont Blanc but I think that’s a bit too much for you. The lower elevations are still—”

“I didn’t notice you slither upstairs, Alexandre.”

Pierre was leaning casually on the doorframe with his arms folded, smiling plaintively at all of us. He had pushed back his sleeves to expose his forearms and kept his eyes trained exclusively on my new friend. I shrank away from Alex, worried we were too close to touching.

Alex rolled his eyes. “Great to see you, Pierre. Quentin and I were just leaving. It was nice meeting you, Natalie. I’ll ask Olivia to keep us in touch so I can show you outdoor activities in France that don’t involve staring at the sky for three hours.”

Noam coughed to hide a laugh and followed Alex and Quentin from the room, abandoning me with a mildly agitated Pierre. I wrung my hands uncomfortably before returning to the puzzle and continuing to work on it like nothing ever happened. At least my brief encounter with Alex and the other two had been pleasant. I wanted the family to like me—it increased my odds of staying alive.

Then Pierre was sitting beside me, resting his chin in his palm. He watched me struggle to complete the damn thing for a few minutes without saying a word. It was incredibly unsettling.

“Don’t you want to socialize?” he murmured.

I shrugged. “Maybe later. I don’t want to intrude on anything.”

“Mhm. They all seem to like you.”

“That’s nice.”

Pierre’s fingers slowly closed around the back of my neck. I froze in the midst of putting down a new piece of the puzzle.

“Alex likes you a bit too much,” he said.

I clenched the puzzle piece in my hand. “We talked for all of five minutes. And you know I have a bone to pick with you. Why are you calling me mom out of nowhere?”

The tips of his fingers began to curl around my throat. “Hm? I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

It wasn’t the time to press for more answers. I grimaced in pain when his hold tightened further and we were suddenly interrupted by a small creak at the door.

Pierre’s hand withdrew from my neck in an instant but there was no one there.


	29. Fade

The longer I stayed around Pierre’s family, the more nonplussed I became. We all had dinner together and while they had mild incidents like any other medium-sized family, they were all perfectly polite and very easy to talk to. The kids obeyed their parents and Florence was especially interested in me. They all snickered to one another when I admitted I was a bit of a space nerd like Pierre. He rolled his eyes and took small sips from his wine.

Things settled down after dinner and I met Olivia’s parents, Ines and Evan. Ines smiled gently at Pierre who seemed largely uninterested in his aunt. She was short but otherwise looked like an older version of her daughter. She was also quite friendly and we discussed the ring Pierre had forced on me.

It was getting harder and harder to remember what he was. He had taken me from my family and all that I had ever known for almost two decades, murdered a man in front of my eyes, slaughtered my best friend and his girlfriend, and I had no idea how many others bodies he had piled up in his swamp. But it still felt like a dream. It was impossible to imagine him slicing off Miranda’s hands while he sat quietly with Camille in his lap as she drifted off to sleep.

The memories of him deliberately drugging me were clear enough to keep me levelheaded, though. I nursed my wine and watched him in my peripheral vision while chatting with Ines and Florence. Manon was sitting in my lap, twisting my ‘engagement’ ring around on my finger. No matter how prim and proper he was on the outside, Dr. Holt was an undeniably deranged man.

_He destroyed your life_ , I reminded myself, watching him running his fingers through Camille’s feathery hair. _Don’t forget that for a second. Your entire life has been uprooted and he doesn’t care._

The family left quietly and the girls were brought upstairs for bed. Tobias and Olivia bid us goodnight and left as well with their fingers linked together, each supporting one of the twins. I watched with a twinge of jealousy—would I ever experience that kind of love?

Pierre rose from the couch and cracked his neck. We were sitting in the living room on the opposite side of the kitchen, where the formal dining room was visible a ways away. There was a fake fireplace flickering in the background with a stone bench curved around it. A shelf supported tons of family photos, including one of Mathis and Christine when they were married many years ago.

The floor was carpeted in a deep maroon shade and a few expensive paintings of different scenery hung from the walls. It was densely furnished to make the huge space feel smaller and we were sitting on one of the any couches scattered about. I stretched my arms toward the ceiling and yawned contently.

“I’m going to bed,” I said. “Are you going out to terrorize the townfolk?”

“Senlis is far too dense. I have nowhere to hide a body, and I’m quite certain you will satiate me very well, Natalie.” He rubbed his chin, examining me. “I’m going to have a smoke before going to sleep. Care to join me outside?”

I stuck out my tongue in revulsion. “Gross, you smoke? No thanks.”

“Yes, it is by far the most abhorrent thing I do,” he said sarcastically.

Obedient as always I went outside the sliding glass doors in the kitchen with him, crossing my arms over my chest in the cold. There was a brief flicker of light before his cigarette was lit and I watched with my nose crinkled as he took a long drag from it. His eyes caught mine.

“You’re going to get lung cancer,” I said.

He released a plume of silvery smoke into the cold air. “So be it.” His eyes shifted away to scan the dark backyard that was dimly illuminated by the moon.

“I’m just warning you, that’s all. Karma is too stacked up against you for anything else to happen.”

“Probably.”

I fidgeted with my sweater. It was from some place with a fancy name. Olivia had brought me to so many that I hardly remembered exactly where each piece of clothing was from.

“Exactly how many people have you killed, anyway?” I asked, faltering when the dreaded ‘k’ word came up. The air felt colder.

Pierre shrugged indifferently like I’d asked him what kind of salad dressing he liked. The end of his cigarette lit up bright orange and he showed no signs of feeling cold in the miserable weather. I’d noticed he was numb to pain in general and absently wondered if it was the same with pleasure. Maybe he was violent with women because he was difficult to stimulate.

I blushed a bit, recalling him grinding the hot and hard answer to that rumination against me several times. Pierre was definitely easy to arouse.

“I began at 18,” he said after exhaling more smoke. “Ten years averaging two women a month. You do the math, darling. You’re quite good at it, after all.”

“But… that would be 24 women a year! Times ten years that’s… 240. How the hell did you kill 240 women in the middle of a small city? All the serial killers who get caught only killed maybe 50 and they always make mistakes. That’s… that’s so many innocent people…”

“I’m meticulous.” Pierre held up his hand, wiggling his fingers. “I destroyed my fingerprints long ago as well, and I do not bring women to my home. In the event my little graveyard was discovered I tore out their teeth and burned their fingerprints off as well.”

I stepped back. “240 women… gone, because of you.”

He smiled and flicked his ashes. “Plus four men. But they aren’t subjected to the worst bits. Most of them were simply in the way.”

I’d already asked too much to handle. I tried to walk around him but he grabbed my arm and turned to shove me against the house, still idly smoking. He flicked his ashes to the ground and smiled fiendishly as he held the cigarette limply between his index and middle fingers.

“What the hell are you doing?” I hissed.

Pierre clamped his hand over my mouth. “I need to put out my cigarette before we can go to bed.”

Blistering pain in my right hip ripped a shrill scream from my throat and I thrashed wildly against him. The cigarette chewed through my flesh, melting and eroding my skin with incredible heat pinpointed in a very small area. I struggled to push him away but it was no use, forcing me to bear the unbearable and wait for the cigarette to burn itself out. Tears leaked down my cheeks all the way to his fingers.

He caught me when my knees wobbled. “I don’t like when you ask so many questions.”

Dear god, the pain. I struggled to compose myself but it felt like someone had lit my flesh on fire and it was gnawing its way around my hip bone. Pierre sighed and hoisted me into his arms like I was a blubbering infant, disposing of the cigarette butt on the way in the garbage.

In our dark room he dropped me on the bed and forcibly pulled off my new clothes until I was left in my underwear. I turned over on my stomach to cry into the sheets, terrified someone would hear me, and presently heard Pierre removing his belt. I’d become conditioned to fear the sound and I covered my head with my hands, trembling. My hip was aflame with agony that seemed to have no end.

Pierre flipped me on my back again and seized my cheeks between his fingers, smiling. “Now is a better time than any to feel your mouth. If your teeth come anywhere near me, I will tear them all out. Keep your hands immobile as well. I do not want to feel them.”

I was beyond terrified. He instructed me to kneel beside the edge of the bed and I did so quickly, still teary-eyed from the cigarette burn. Pierre sat on the edge of the bed and I heard his pants unzip. He tangled his long fingers in my hair and dragged me toward him, silent and intimidating as hell. I grasped the edge of the bed between his legs and squeezed my eyes shut.

“None of that,” he chastised, yanking on my hair. “Look at me. Lick your lips.”

It was a good suggestion. I ran my tongue across my mouth and hesitantly looked into Pierre’s eyes only to have my head aggressively pushed down moments later. My lips flattened against my teeth painfully to keep them from touching Pierre during the ordeal. I tightened my grasp on the sheets, eyes widening with each inch of my mouth he pushed through. He definitely wasn’t small.

My fears were unfounded. It wasn’t difficult, and Pierre was too much of a control freak to let me do much on my own, anyway. He held my hair firmly and moved my head where he wanted, groaning quietly with each stroke of my lips or tongue along his length. I watched his blue eyes roll back.

But he was still too vigorous and it didn’t take long for my mouth to start hurting. He would push back too far and stimulate my gag reflex to make my grip tighter if I slackened. Mercifully, I could feel him swelling and his breathing grew ragged at a much faster rate. I blinked more tears from my eyes and waited for his orgasm to finally set me free. I reflexively reached up to wrap my fingers around his slick erection without a second thought.

I heard his breath catch in his throat before he furiously shoved me away.

I managed to catch myself on my elbow and stared at Pierre, still sitting on the edge of the bed with the organ I had violated beginning to fade. His eyes had become vacant and locked onto the floor. His whole body was trembling: he hadn’t even taken off his shirt. Our room grew silent.

He leaned over his knees and curled his fingers in his hair then screamed without warning. I watched in terror, heart pounding a mile a minute, and considered running the hell out of the house. What had I done? He told me not to touch him but I figured all guys had to like that to some degree.

“Shit,” he spat, clutching his face. “ _Shit_!”

It was sort of sad to watch. I hesitantly sat up, gauging his current level of crazy, and wobbled to my feet to cautiously approach. He was stone still.

I reached out to touch his shoulder in comfort and remembered at the last second that it wasn’t an option. I quickly withdrew my hand and swallowed hard.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Pierre grabbed both of my wrists and stood very quickly, blue eyes cloudy with rage. He was completely unhinged. “Keep these away from me or I will cut them off. In fact, I have half a mind to do that right now and save myself some trouble. Come along, Natalie. To the kitchen.”

“I said I’m sorry!” I repeated, coming close to tears again. “You can’t expect me to never touch you. How the hell am I supposed to—”

His palm came across my face in a stiff, fluid motion. I immediately broke down and bit at the hand still holding my other wrist, and Pierre forced me down on the carpet. I kicked and shrieked and he kissed me roughly on the mouth to catch all of my protests, pinning my wrists above my head with one hand. The other moved to his pants and I sobbed helplessly, trapped beneath his weight.

Soon Pierre was grinding against me and I was in five hundred types of agony. He was using me for sexual release; maybe even imaging I was his goddamn mother, and I couldn’t lay a finger on him. He’d put a cigarette out on my hip and was currently moving against it to aggravate the horrible pain. He pushed his tongue in my mouth, eagerly kissing me while tears flowed down my face.

And I still felt fucking sorry for him. My heart still wrenched in a horrible way thinking of why he hated to be touched, especially where he should’ve enjoyed it, and why he called me ‘maman’. I squeezed my eyes shut thinking of the dreaded closet and that damn song…

That didn’t make it okay to kill over 200 people. Did it?

Pierre groaned and dipped his head into my collar bone as he reached his plateau. My lower lip trembled with each increasingly lazy thrust until he finally came to a stop, panting against my skin. He was lying on top of me and balancing his weight to keep most of it from crushing my chest.

Neither of us spoke. I expected Pierre to have some witticism to leave me lying on the floor with, but he turned his neck to rest his head under my chin and sighed contently.

“All mine,” he murmured.

I closed my eyes, fighting more tears. My hands were free but I knew I couldn’t move them. What if it startled him and he flew off the handle again? What if I woke up in the closet again with a grown man lying next to me like a baby? Would I be able to tolerate it? It didn’t just tug my heartstrings seeing Pierre so strangely weak and pitiful; it tore them and left a bloody mess behind.

He would kill me. I would be number 245.

_I’m sorry._


	30. Ego

The sound of clicking woke me in the morning. I was still lying on the floor but had rolled over on my stomach, causing the cigarette burn on my hip to lance pain through my entire leg. A soft groan slipped from my mouth and I turned my head to press my face into the carpet. My back was incredibly stiff. I could feel chaffing from the rug begging to prickle along my spine.

I pushed myself up on my elbow and wiped the dried tears out of my eyes. Pierre had really lost it. I couldn’t tell what he was, exactly: the lines between insanity and plain psychopathy were so blurred sometimes. He certainly didn’t give a quarter of a shit about what happened to me. I was an object that needed protection, like a nice new car or an expensive electronic device.

“Oh good, you’re awake. I’ve found a home.”

Trembling, I managed to sit up completely and continued to rub my eyes. Pierre was sitting on the bed with a laptop before him, reading something interesting enough on the screen to keep his attention away from me. There was a plate of food on his nightstand that had been mostly eaten but the sight of it made my stomach twist with hunger. My first order of business was seeing if I could get Manon and Camille to make me something again.

“Neat,” I said.

“It’s rather deep into the Morvan Hills but will allow me to still commute to work efficiently enough. Near Dijon, which is three hours from Paris. Three bedrooms, in the event we have guests, and a very spacious basement.” He smiled.

I stood and wavered on my feet, disoriented. “Great. I’m going to get some food.”

“No, you aren’t.”

Silence descended on the room. Pierre continued quietly clicking without saying a word and I rolled my eyes. He couldn’t keep me from eating. Olivia would certainly notice and have something to say about it. She’d probably heard me shrieking like a banshee the night before and would already have questions.

I put my hand on the door handle nonchalantly. He was full of it.

“If you eat today, I will kill someone tonight.”

My spine prickled as cold fear doused my flippant mood. “You’ll… kill someone?”

Pierre rubbed his chin and though I couldn’t see him, I knew his expression had not changed in the least. Murder was just another way to keep me in line. He would suspend another person’s life over me and I would be offered a painful ultimatum: my self-preservation or theirs.

“Yes,” he said. “No food today.”

“Why?” I demanded, turning around to face him with my hands on my hips. “Is it because you threw a hissy fit when I tried touching your dick? Your weird emotional problems aren’t my issue.”

“No drink, as well.” He glanced at me without his characteristic disarming smile, deadly serious. “I urge you to keep insulting me. Your next privilege to be taken involves the bathroom, and I don’t think you’ll particularly like that.”

It took every ounce of self-control to keep my mouth shut. I picked out an outfit for the day before heading to the shower to clean off the slimy feeling I’d picked up the previous night. Pierre was dialing a number on a new cell phone when I closed the door with an angry slam.

What an asinine way to ‘torture’ me. Not eating for a day was uncomfortable but not impossible, though I wasn’t sure how I’d do without drinking. I stripped out of my pajamas and considered throwing them in the trash but realized that wouldn’t go over well with Pierre, either. Irritated, I started the shower and waited miserably before it with my arms folded for the water to heat up.

Pierre was gone from the bedroom when I finished. I blowdried my hair and went downstairs to socialize with the Bauers, feeling slightly better from the warm shower. Hopefully Pierre left the house to do whatever psychopaths occupied themselves with during the day.

The girls were sitting in the living room watching television, heads drooped lazily on one another, and Tobias was playing with Adrien across the room. He waved to me and I smiled back, wondering where Olivia had gone off to. She was the working one in the family so she probably had something to tend to. It was kind of lonely not having her around.

“Breakfast, Natalie?” Tobias asked when I sat down beside Manon.

I shook my head and my stomach squeezed. “No, I’m not too hungry this morning, but thank you. Is Olivia at work?”

“Ja, she leaves in the wee hours of the morning. Manon and Camille both weren’t feeling well this morning so I let them stay home. We’ll be going to see the doctor in a little while.” He frowned and looked up from Adrien. “Pierre just left to look at a house. Are you feeling sick, too?”

“Yeah,” I muttered, “I feel awful.”

Tobias rustled up the girls and Adrien to get them ready for the visit to the doctor. I lolled on the couch, flipping through channels with cartoons I couldn’t even understand, and tried to figure out how to find the English button. There was nothing to do when someone else wasn’t around. I didn’t want to risk leaving and having Pierre throw another violent tantrum and Olivia had her pesky career.

Manon and Camille both hugged me tightly before they left. They were pale and sniffling and when Manon hugged me she tilted her lips close to my ear.

“I heard loud noises in your room,” she whispered.

I tightened my hold around her. “Don’t worry about it, sweetie. Be good for your dad at the doctor.”

They left and I cursed furiously. What if one of the kids had gotten curious and pressed their ear to the door?! They would’ve heard everything and for all I knew, Manon could’ve already told her mother. I promised myself I would rebuke Pierre when he came back from whatever important outing he had to tend to. He didn’t think about anyone but himself. He was so goddamn self-centered.

I’d only been alone for all of five minutes when the doorbell rang. My heart quickened nervously but I got up off the couch to answer it anyway, curious to see who was visiting the Bauers.

Alex was standing outside with his hands in his pockets. He was wearing a red sweater and khakis that no one else would have been able to pull off. He raised an eyebrow when I kept staring at him, clinging to the door for my life. What kind of woman would leave someone like him? She was either utterly blind or he had a serious character flaw I couldn’t see.

I wanted to smile. I was a terrible judge of people. I’d made a grievous mistake in judging Pierre. Pretty wrapping didn’t mean what was inside had any kind of value.

“Can I come in?” Alex asked, amused by my frozen stance.

Pierre wasn’t a huge fan and I didn’t want to piss him off but it wasn’t my house. I nodded quickly and stepped aside to allow Alex inside; assuming Olivia would’ve done the same. He casually entered and looked around like it was his first time seeing the place.

“Pierre went out somewhere,” I said, shutting the door behind Alex. “Olivia’s at work and Tobias had to bring all of the kids to the doctor.” I paused, laughing a little. “I think I know them too well.”

“That’s an easy trap to fall into with Olivia,” Alex said. “I dropped Quentin off at school and thought I would come by to visit with Tobias for a while. Quentin and I live in Paris but he comes here most weekends to see his cousins. Olivia likes mothering him.”

“You live a whole hour away? I don’t think I could tolerate that kind of transit every day on the trains. Do you work in Paris, too?”

The sound of the cartoon seemed to draw us to the living room and I hardly noticed sitting down on the couch with Alex. He kept a respectful distance and glanced at the television, quirking an eyebrow at me again. I shrugged sheepishly—I didn’t know what the hell else to watch.

“I’m a high school teacher,” he said. “My mother was from England and she was an English professor, so I guess I followed in her footsteps.”

“You’re different than everyone else.” I hurried to explain myself when Alex frowned. “The way you talk caught me when we first spoke yesterday. Everyone else uses English very… stiffly, I think? It’s not their native language so they use bigger words and... you know…”

He grinned. “I know what you mean. Florence and I grew up in England for the most part so we didn’t get the whole French experience. I’ve told Olivia she sounds like a robot but she doesn’t believe me.”

I laughed, truly comfortable for the first time in what felt like forever. “She’s not too bad but Pierre can be unbearable sometimes. He talks like he’s reciting the words off Google Translate. But he’s pretty much a computer with human skin no matter which way you spin it.”

Alex only smiled tersely.

After some convincing we decided to go out and walk around Senlis for the afternoon. I didn’t have anything else to do and I figured Pierre would be gone for most of the day, anyway. Florence and Anthony would be picking Quentin up from school along with Eloise so we had most of the day to wander. I was finally going to explore France beyond the designer clothes and shopping.

We went upstairs and Alex stood politely outside the bedroom while I gathered different things in my purse. His eyes swept across the room before settling on me.

“How did you meet Pierre, again?” he asked.

I almost dropped the lip balm I was putting away. Shit, hold yourself together, Natalie! “I was deliberately flunking astronomy and he figured me out. He tutored me a few times and uh, I guess things just happened from there.”

“And that was about a month ago?” Alex furrowed his brow like he was confused but I knew he was trying to draw answers from me without being too forward. “It must be very serious for you to move to another country with him in such a short time. And you’re not even 20 yet.”

The ring was sitting on the dresser and I slipped it on my finger, trying to look ‘serious’. “Love comes at weird times.”

“…Yeah, it does.”

Senlis was the slice of France that I had been eager to see. There were plenty of huge, ornate Gothic churches from years long passed that still had enormous paintings of heavenly hosts on the inner walls. Alex knew Senlis rather well and explained who the artist was for each and where they came from. I wished I had my phone to take a picture—I wouldn’t be seeing Senlis for a very long time.

We walked along the cobblestone streets and discussed the current affairs Pierre neatly avoided, like the shutdown of the United States government and the ‘polar vortex’ that had descended on the country. I jokingly told Alex I was glad to be free of the insane weather.

He brought me to a small café and my stomach growled hungrily. It was around 4 in the afternoon and I had done what Pierre asked: no food and no drink. I fidgeted with my fingers when Alex opened the door for me and gestured that I enter. If I brushed my teeth really well Pierre wouldn’t be able to tell. But he seemed to have a sixth sense for when I disobeyed him…

We sat down at one of the small tables and I kept shifting around. The menu was in French and English and the soup of the day was sounding very appealing. Was it worth being caught? If I ate or drank anything Pierre would kill someone. How selfish could I get? I couldn’t terminate a life.

“Not hungry?”

I snapped out of my reverie and glanced up to see Alex watching me with intense interest. I hunched down lower in my chair and shook my head. “No, not really. It’s okay; you can eat.”

Alex looked around to make sure no one was nearby and leaned toward me. “Do you know why I don’t care for Pierre?”

I shrugged. “He’s not very likeable?”

“Yes, and I could sense from the day we met him that there’s something not quite right. Olivia and Flo both think I’m paranoid but I can tell he’s… unhinged. That’s why I was very surprised he brought a woman home, especially one so young. I don’t trust him.”

“He’s okay, just kind of intense.”

“I noticed he had his hand around your neck last night.”

“We were only—”

“Does that have anything to do with your lack of appetite?” Alex asked quietly.

Shit! I only stared back at him like a deer in headlights until the blessed waitress arrived to take our order. Alex got soup for me even though I vehemently refused and I wished I could open up and tell him everything. If I eat, he will find out, and he will kill another woman over it.

At least I knew what the creaking at the door had been. I’d been concerned it was a ghost or one of the kids had seen us but a grown man witnessing it wasn’t a huge deal. The waitress set down our drinks and I turned my eyes to the table. If Alex told anyone something very bad would happen. I didn’t know if anyone would make it out alive.

“It’s a shame to see someone like you with someone like him.” Alex pushed my drink toward me, brushing his lip with his index finger. “A waste, really. I’m guessing he’s moving as deep into the middle of nowhere as he can to keep you from telling any of us a thing.”

I wrung my hands. “I’m sorry, but I really can’t drink it.”

“Why not?”

“I definitely can’t tell you.”

Alex sighed and pushed the drink closer again. “You’ll be fine.”

I knew I would be fine. It was other women I was worried about.

But my stomach won out over my heart and while I ate the delicious food I thought of ways I could hide it from Pierre. I’d brush my teeth a few times and floss even more times to make sure he couldn’t taste anything. The toothpaste would tip him off but he couldn’t prove it.

It was starting to get dark when we walked back to the house. The night was cool and most of the kids had already gone home to do homework or play video games with their friends. I walked alongside Alex with a shamefully full belly, praying Pierre wasn’t home yet. If he went all the way to the house in the Morvan Hills he would have a long trip there and back.

The lights were on so we knew everyone was home. Alex stopped outside the wrought iron gates and turned to face me with his hands in his pockets. I smiled and inclined my head politely.

“Thanks for taking me out,” I said.

“Anytime, Natalie. Thank you for coming with me, and let me knew if you ever need something.”

When I turned to walk away Alex suddenly grabbed my arm and pulled me around the corner of the gate into the shadows. He kissed me passionately but not aggressively like Pierre always did, and I eagerly returned his kiss for a few moments. I could even put my hands on him without any fear of retribution and I coiled my arms around his back before realizing what I was doing.

I promptly shoved Alex away, covering my mouth. “What the hell was that?!”

“What was what?” he asked innocently.

“Pierre is going to fucking kill me! You can’t go around kissing people you just met, particularly engaged people!”

“It was only a kiss. You want to do it again?”

I pushed Alex back again, blushing bright red, and hurried down the walkway to the house. He promised to keep in touch again but I slammed the front door shut before I could hear anything more.


	31. Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

The family was sitting in the room doing different things. Tobias was knitting a very tiny scarf that I assumed was for Adrien while his wife was curled up beside him reviewing some papers. A pair of glasses was sliding halfway down her nose. Manon and Camille were on the floor coloring and both of them glanced up when I stepped into the doorway to the living room.

Both of them were still pale and sickly. Manon lazily reached out her arms toward me when I approached and I sat down to pull her into my lap. She curled against my chest and stuck her thumb in her mouth and Camille took over coloring her sister’s picture. It was a quiet evening.

Pierre was sitting on the other side of the room hunched over a coffee table, stroking his chin while he examined his own papers. My spine prickled nervously when our eyes met but I tried to act nonchalant and hugged Manon closer to my chest. If I played it cool no one would ever no. I could tell them I explored Senlis on my own and _shit_ , I was supposed to make a beeline for the bathroom to brush my teeth! I didn’t want to disturb Manon but—

Olivia sighed. “Did Alex drop by today, Natalie? I hope he wasn’t much of a bother.”

Dr. Holt’s eyes flickered up to mine again, cold and calculative.

“Nope!” I said quickly. “No bother at all. We weren’t together for very long.”

“He comes by some weekends when he drops Quentin off at school,” Olivia said. “Having our family an hour away is nice but they like their unannounced visits too much.” She looked over at Pierre, who had busied himself with his work again. “Your fiancé told us you will be moving tomorrow.”

The thought of it made my heart hurt. I nodded and averted my eyes to the floor, dreading leaving the safety of the Bauer household. I probably wouldn’t see them again. Pierre would kill me and bury me in the backyard but lie to their faces and say I left him. I knew I was next.

Tobias scooped up Camille and gestured for me to follow him upstairs. I careful supported Manon and tried to avoid Pierre’s eyes tracking us as we left the living room. The poor little thing was sick. I didn’t want to interrupt Olivia’s work and she was already sleeping in my lap, anyway.

We went upstairs and down the hall to the first bedroom to drop off Camille, who smiled in her sleep and nestled into her covers. Her bedroom was huge; definitely twice the size of mine back home. Tobias escorted me to the next bedroom and I gently lay Manon down in her own big bed but her blue eyes opened and she whined, reaching for me again.

“Sleep,” Tobias said, tenderly lowering her arms. “You can see Aunt Natalie off in the morning.”

Manon’s lower lip trembled. “What about the loud noises?”

Tobias furrowed his brow and looked to me but I didn’t know what to say. I coughed to lessen the impact of the awkward silence and brushed her hair away from her face. I wished her a good night and left the room but Tobias was right behind me, full of questions.

“It’s nothing,” I assured him, smiling tightly. “Don’t worry about it. I’m not feeling very good so I think I’m going to bed. I’ll see you and Olivia in the morning.”

He touched my arm. “We thought we heard a bit of noise last night as well. Is everything alright, Natalie? You’re more than welcome to stay with my wife and I if you need to. The Morvan Hills are very desolate and lonely so if you ever—”

“It’s okay,” I interrupted, taking a step back. “We were… you know.”

“Natalie.”

Tobias looked up and I turned to see Pierre standing by the stairs with one hand in his pocket and the other holding his papers under his arm. He looked incredibly pissed off and I took a reflexive step backwards toward Tobias. Did he know I had eaten something? Had he seen me kissing Alex?

Pierre wordlessly beckoned me to follow him. I cast an apologetic glance to Tobias and obediently walked behind Pierre to the other side of the house where our bedroom was. My palms were sweating and I kept opening and closing my fists nervously. He opened the door and waited for me to enter first, frigid blue eyes trained intently on my mouth. I was trying to get the aftertaste of food to go away.

The door shut. I stood quietly in the middle of the room while Pierre put his things away, one of which had a very complicated formula on the front page. He removed his watch and belt and I fidgeted. What was he going to do? Manon heard me shrieking the night before and Tobias was on to him as well. Alex already hated him and was waiting for the right moment to make an accusation.

I watched Pierre open one of the dresser drawers to remove a roll of silver duct tape. When I rocked back on my heels he shot me a gruesome glare, tearing free a piece that I assumed would cover my mouth. I had made too much noise. I was making myself a liability.

“Wait!” I said as he approached. “Why don’t you just tape my hands together? If I can’t use my mouth I’m not very useful to you, right?”

“You and I are leaving tonight,” he purred, pressing the duct tape across my mouth. “We don’t need an emotional farewell tomorrow morning, and you have driven me to a blistering level of rage.”

My wrists were bound and I watched in terror as he gathered the rest of our things. In a few short hours I would be utterly alone in a house I didn’t know with him and no one would be able to save me. It seemed like a spur or the moment decision, like he had realized what I was thinking. It was too dangerous for him to punish me with so many ears tuning in. He couldn’t restrain himself, though.

We left the quiet house without another word. Pierre led me to a black Mercedes and threw our things in the back seat before pushing me into the passenger seat. Tears brimmed in my eyes as he backed out of the driveway and into the quiet streets of Senlis. Goodbye, Bauer family. It was nice knowing you.

Loud screaming in the trunk made my pulse quicken. I looked to Pierre while he merged onto a large highway and he smiled down at me.

“I knew you would break your promise,” he murmured. “Our friend Jane will pay the price. She’s an American as well—I borrowed her from a tour group.”

Oh no. No. No, no, no…

Jane was kicking and shrieking in the trunk for quite a while but she eventually realized she had nowhere to go and broke down into helpless sobs. I hung my head in shame, staring at the car’s floor for most of the trip. Jesus Christ. I was going to get some innocent girl killed. She would never see her family again.

“These are the difficult decisions I make each time I take a life,” Pierre said, idly scrolling through radio stations. “You will hold lives in your hands in the same way, Natalie, and be granted a choice. One will lead to an unfortunate situation for yourself and the other will lead to the same for another woman. You will decide what is more important: your wellbeing or that of another.”

We parked. I looked up in terror to see a fairly large house looming before us, painted white with blue shutters. Pierre got out of the car and I glanced about to see there were no other homes around, only endless trees and a dirt road that had led to the place. It was perfect for him.

First he took Jane out of the trunk. She resisted, screaming against the duct tape over her mouth, and Pierre wrapped a hand around her throat. She was tall and thin with blonde hair falling in waves around her face. I stared. She wasn’t really his type from what I had gathered. Why did he pick her?

When Pierre withdrew a knife she became much more compliant and he dragged her toward the house, leaving me alone in the Mercedes. The front door slammed shut and my eyes flickered to the lock mechanism by my door. I glanced at the house one more time and immediately turned to open the lock. My fingers snatched the door handle and I spilled out of the car onto the gravel driveway.

It was pitch black and cold. I rolled over on my side and checked the front door again to make sure Pierre wasn’t coming but all I heard was a shrill scream. Terrified, I staggered to my feet and blindly headed in the opposite direction of the house down the dirt road we had come up.

I’d hardly reached the end of the driveway when I slipped on some black ice and fell to the ground, smashing my burned hip off the freezing earth. I yelped in pain and struggled to breathe, which was significantly impaired by the tape over my mouth. My eyes shifted back and forth in search of Pierre’s shadow or some other sign he was chasing me but all I could see were the dark trees.

I squirmed on my side in an attempt to regain my balance. Christ, he was going to find me—

“What are you doing all the way over here, mon chouchou?”

Pierre was looming over me with a very large knife. His shirt was untucked and his eyes wild with excitement but he was still reining himself in. I lashed out at his legs with my feet and he laughed, leaning over to tangle his lean fingers in my hair. He yanked and I unwillingly stood, swaying.

We began the trek back toward the house. I would stop occasionally to feebly fight him but he would shove me and I was forced to continue. Jane had fallen silent again.

The house appeared to have the same layout as the old one. Pierre pulled me along to the basement door and I began furiously resisting but he pushed me inside and shut the door. The sound of Jane’s soft sobs could be heard as we descended the steps into the cold bowels of the house. Maybe he was getting ready to kill both of us. He whistled merrily and Jane immediately stopped crying.

The whole basement was empty save for a mattress with red sheets that Jane was lying on, completely naked. There was a seat of chains holding her wrists above her head because Pierre _hated being touched_. I turned my eyes away sympathetically to spare her the torment and was promptly pushed to the floor, back against a wall. Clinking preceded manacles slapping around my wrists that suspended my arms above my head. I drooped helplessly.

“Watch carefully, Natalie,” Pierre whispered, grasping my chin. “This is your punishment.”

My eyes were puffy from crying but followed Pierre as he languidly rose to his feet and approached Jane. She curled her legs upward as he knelt on the mattress before her, unzipping his pants. She shrieked again—I desperately wanted to tell her to stop doing that—and he wrenched her knees apart. Jane kept wailing and shifting her hips to avoid him as he produced a condom from beside the mattress. He tore it open with his teeth and rolled it on, joining with her body moments later.

Now I understood how he had slept with so many women. I had kind of assumed he raped them before the stabbing thing but having to watch it was entirely different. I squeezed my eyes shut and turned my head, still subjected to the sounds of their bodies sliding together and Jane’s muffled cries. Pierre was dead silent and only panted on occasion. I didn’t know how much time passed before it was over.

I looked at them again when the sheets shifted on the mattress. Pierre leaned back to look down at Jane, trembling and glassy-eyed, and he casually glanced at me. There was a bit of sweat on his forehead but he hadn’t gotten undressed. He smirked and picked up the huge knife he had approached me with outside. My eyes widened in horror.

The blade came down directly between Jane’s breasts. Her body vaulted upwards in shock but she only breathed out instead of screaming like a banshee. Pierre viciously tore the knife back out of her body and began frenziedly stabbing her over and over and over. It was a disgusting sound and he was laughing while he did it, genuinely enjoying each violent intrusion.

When he finally stopped I was tugging in vain on the chains trying to escape. Pierre threw the knife away and stared down at Jane’s corpse, panting and shaking. He looked toward me and staggered to his feet. Blood was coating his hands, dripping to the cold cement floor.

“That felt good,” he sighed.

I’d moved up to number 246.


	32. Whose woods these are I think I know.

The dead girl wasn’t moved for a long time. Pierre left me alone in the basement with her and I grappled with my fear, drooping over pitifully when the door upstairs slammed shut. Jane was very dead. The reek of blood and death hung thick in the air like smog and I struggled to keep my breaths short to avoid inhaling much of it. I’d lost count of how many times he stabbed her.

Over and over and over… he just… kept…

The door opened again and I heard footsteps on the stairs. I raised my head, trembling and looking through my hair as Pierre stepped onto the cement floor. He had washed his hands and changed into pajamas that hung low on his hips. I glared evenly at him and a cruel smile twisted his mouth.

“Would you like to see the best feature of this house, Natalie?” he asked.

I wanted to spit on him. He’d sexually assaulted a woman in front of me and proceeded to stab her like a maniac until blood spilled over the mattress onto the floor. I was in no mood for games.

Pierre walked across the basement to where Jane was lying and scooped her up like she weighed nothing, easily throwing her over his shoulder. He took a few more steps and reached out to turn a handle, yanking open a well-hidden door to reveal what looked like a giant oven. My eyes widened. It was just like the ones back home where people made pizzas.

He threw her in and shut the door without another word. I watched him press a red button near the oven and bright red flames exploded inside, licking against the viewing window. Pierre turned and leaned against the wall beside it with his arms folded. His smile had grown.

Why did he need a swamp when he had his own incinerator?

I pressed myself tight against the wall, panting in fear, and he frowned. He was utterly at ease. I had nowhere to run and no one to call and the spare girl was currently being burnt to a crisp.

“Don’t worry, princesse,” he crooned, “you are far too valuable to me to be charred. Our friend Jane helped offset my impulses just enough that I have a lower likelihood of stabbing you this evening. I couldn’t bear to kill you after all this time and energy I’ve invested, oui?”

My heart plummeted through my gut. Oh no. We were going to… oh no. I’d hoped he would keep hitting distractions or we would be stuck with the Bauers for a while longer but the time had come. I shrank down as Pierre calmly approached me, blue eyes flickering with a terrifying hunger. He’d wanted to wait until we were completely alone. I didn’t have another trump card.

Pierre released my wrists from the chains and I slumped over awkwardly, arms strained from the pressure. His fingers knotted in my hair to jerk me to my feet and he dragged me from the basement back to the warm first level of the house. There were no decorations and only one couch in the living room. He didn’t have to feign normalcy anymore.

Halfway up the stairs I started screaming into the duct tape. What was coming was sure to be traumatizing; even more so than watching Jane being raped and murdered. Pierre turned and ripped the tape off my mouth so I could shriek to full effect, tears streaming down my face.

I collapsed on the second floor, hysterical. “Leave me alone!” I screamed, flipping on my back to kick at him with my legs. “LET ME GO!”

The sound of music drifted down the hall from a bedroom. Pierre got on top of me, wrestling with my legs, and slapped me hard across the face several times. I kept shrieking until he hit me forcefully enough to draw blood into my mouth but at that point he grew impatient and slammed my head down on the floor. Dazed, I could only watch as he dragged me down the hallway toward the music.

It was fairly loud choir type music—some old classical piece or something. I groaned softly in pain as Pierre shut the bedroom door and locked it like someone might interrupt. He circled me like a vulture examining its prey and I slowly pushed myself up on my knees with my hands still behind my back, bound by the duct tape. Blood dripped from my mouth.

“You’re one sick son of a bitch,” I hissed, glaring at him. “You’ll get caught soon.”

He squatted down in front of me, smiling. “Do you like this song? It’s ‘Requiem’ by Mozart.”

“Fuck off.”

“Oh, we’re getting quite close to the fucking, Natalie.” He rose, imposing amongst the frenzied notes churning in the background. “I’ve been uncharacteristically patient.”

My hair had become a terrible liability that allowed Pierre to pull me around like a ragdoll. He hoisted me onto the bed and I rolled over on my back to watch like a hawk as he strolled to the other side of the bed, where there was a bottle of wine. He poured it into a glass and drank it quickly, studying me while I waited with bated breath for his next move. The music wasn’t making the situation any less tense. I could barely hear myself thinking over it.

There was a telltale jar of white powder beside the bottle of wine. Pierre very deliberately poured another glass that I assumed was intended for me and sprinkled some of the substance into it. I wriggled toward the edge of the bed when he extended the glass toward me.

“Come now,” he chastised, “this is only meant to help you relax.”

I squirmed desperately for the floor. “I’m not letting you drug me again!”

“Very well. I suppose it will feel much better watching the fear in your eyes.” He took a small sip from the contaminated wine and twisted his neck, straining the tendons. “This will help keep me from killing you in the end. Try to keep your shrieking down to a minimum.”

Pierre began taking off his clothes while I inched closer to my useless escape. Tears pricked my eyes—what did it matter? I’d fall on the floor and he’d pick me up again. I had lost. There was nowhere to run.

I had one last trick up my sleeve.

Fueled by vitriol, I turned my head at one of the high points of the music and swallowed hard. “Olivia told me your family shunned your mother, and I think I know why.”

Dr. Holt raised an eyebrow. He was shirtless now and his musculature was illuminated by the moonlight. Was he going to get naked? He never got naked. “Please, do share.”

It all clicked together at one point: the closet, the red nightgown, the weird music, and Pierre’s absolute revulsion to being touched. When Olivia mentioned Cecilia had been ousted by the family when Alex was born the pieces of the puzzle snapped into place. It wasn’t a happy ending, though.

“Your mother molested you,” I blurted as he took off his pants. “That’s… that’s why you hate women and kill them, and it’s why you can’t tolerate being touched. I don’t think you’re even conscious of it anymore. You probably repressed it or something, but I’m almost positive that’s what happened.” I leaned on my side, heart racing. “If you would give me a chance, I can—”

He was on top of me very suddenly, clasping a hand over my mouth. His eyes looked vacant. “What an interesting hypothesis. Unfortunately, my mother was my human shield when Paul began his drinking binges. You are very mistaken if you believe I will ever change. I live to destroy.”

All the sweating and nervousness had weakened the duct tape around my wrists again. Furious, I ripped myself free of the bonds and promptly yanked Pierre’s hand away from my mouth.

“Cecilia Holt was a pedophile,” I said, “and you were her absolute favorite. She’d lure you into the closet and make you touch her and she’d jerk her own son off. I bet your dad drank so much because he knew he was in love with a woman who only wanted to have sex with her child. It’s obvious. She kept you away from all the other kids when you were growing up because you were all hers. That’s why you’re a control freak. That’s why you’re you.”

Pierre’s jaw tightened and I knew I had finally hit a vulnerable spot. I wanted to help him—I didn’t know why, but he was only in need of a few repairs. But I wasn’t even 20 years old yet and I didn’t have the faintest idea of how to do that. He had spiraled far beyond assistance into a black void of self-loathing that I would never be able to penetrate no matter how hard I tried.

He wrapped both of his hands around my neck and crushed my windpipe so my air supply was instantaneously cut off. I felt blood pulsate to my head but his frigid blue eyes didn’t waver. He squeezed tighter and I gulped for air, writing beneath him. He was going to suffocate me.

“Would you like to know how I became acquainted with Dr. Purlieu?” he asked quietly.

I gasped, scratching in vain at his hand. Holy shit, he was actually going to kill me.

Pierre cocked his head. “When I was 16, my father decapitated my mother in our kitchen. I bludgeoned him with a frying pan upon finding her corpse and was sentenced to five years of ‘intensive’ therapy. Louis knew what I was and tried his best to keep in contact as the years passed.

“My serial killing began when I turned 18 and I stumbled across a young woman in a dark alley. I had managed to get her on the ground and was prepared to drive her through with my knife when a man shouted at me and proceeded to interrupt. He attempted to help her and she managed to escape, but not before I slit his throat. I thought your face seemed familiar when we met.” He smiled. “If I’m correct, I believe I am the one who murdered your father.”

My grip on his hands weakened and my ears began to ring. No… it wasn’t possible…

Hot fury burned through my muscles and I viciously drew my knee between his legs as hard as I could. Pierre growled in pain, forced to release my neck to protect himself, and I rolled off the bed. I stumbled on my feet and wildly looked around for a weapon, which I found in the form of a knife lying on the nightstand. I grabbed it and turned back to Pierre, trembling. I had to kill him.

He laughed caustically, panting. “Do it! Don’t waste time, Natalie; aim for my jugular and run for your life. After one slice you won’t be able to stop yourself.”

But I didn’t have it in me. Tears burned in my eyes and I bolted out of the room as fast as I could with the knife, heading for the front door. I could follow the road back to the main town. I’d scream and scream and someone would have a heart to help me. My vision blurred as I raced out the door and stumbled over some loose sticks. There was still dried blood from Jane.

I looked over my shoulder and, to my dread, could see the faint outline of Pierre standing in the doorway of the house. He was too far away to be perceptible but he stepped down off the porch and began advancing toward me, legs shrouded in shadow.

I rushed through the forest keeping close to the road and realized he was gaining on me quickly. I banked to the right and found an overturned log to hide myself within, breathing a mile a minute. When I heard footsteps I clapped a hand over my mouth, eyes wide with fear. He would hear my breathing or heartbeat before anything else. One of them would be my undoing.

Pierre wasn’t winded in the least. He circled the spot a few times like he was trying to find a trace of where I had gone and seemed to walk away after a while. His footsteps tapered off and I hesitantly resumed breathing with a small sense of victory. I’d finally outwitted him.

The wind rustled the trees as I tentatively peeked out from my hiding spot. It was incredibly dark and I had wandered farther from the road than I intended. I glanced around a few times before crawling out onto the cold earth and remained in that position to listen to his breathing or movements. He had probably walked away to look for me elsewhere. I tightened my grasp on the knife and slowly rose.

It was quiet. I took small, deliberate steps in the direction of the main road, keeping the knife at the ready to stab if Pierre attacked me out of nowhere. No matter how lightly I stepped the earth and leaves crackled underfoot, undoubtedly attracting his attention. He was probably closing in…

An arm ensnared my waist to drag me backwards and I lost my footing immediately. I swung around blindly with the knife but Pierre caught my wrist just as the blade kissed his cheek. I pushed fiercely to cut him but he easily forced my arm down and wrenched the knife from my grasp. He shoved me forward so I collapsed on the ground and dropped on top of me moments later.

I screamed in frustration when he pinned my wrists with one hands. How did he have such ungodly strength? I could hardly twist my body either which way on the cold ground to escape.

“Get OFF me!” I shrieked.

Pierre made short work of my clothes. The knife was lying a few feet away glinting maroon in the moonlight and I desperately stared at it, finally beginning to cry. How could he kill my father? I would get revenge. I would get over my fear and cut his throat while he was asleep.

It was unbearably cold outside and I shivered, jumping slightly when Pierre’s warm body pressed against mine. He took off his boxers leaving both of us naked in the middle of the woods in early January, a truly frightening thought. His hand released my wrists to pull my thighs apart and I screamed at an eardrum-shattering pitch as I shoved uselessly against his shoulders. Deliverance, deliverance…

“You’re not going anywhere,” he whispered into my ear.

The night was silent and still, allowing my agonized wail to echo through the dreary forest when Pierre very suddenly forced himself inside me. He groaned and kissed me passionately, coercing my tongue to move with his as he repeatedly thrust deep inside my unwilling body. I pounded frantically on his back in a bid to escape the awful pain but he was too forgone to care. The dirt and leaves crunched against my spine with each aggressive thrust Pierre made.

“Please stop,” I begged, sinking my nails into his back. “It hurts…”

“You feel divine, Natalie.” He slid a hand under my behind to prop my hips up higher and pushed so deep inside me that I burst into fresh tears. “Daddy would be very proud of you.”

“S-stop it!”

Then his blue eyes were drilling through mine, hazy and unfocused with lust. He rotated his hips in a way that stroked the pleasurable spot inside me and I whimpered. “Should I let you come? You’ve been taunting me for so many weeks and seemed to enjoy my torment at my cousin’s home.”

I shivered miserably as my body gradually betrayed me. After all these years I could still remember dad smiling when he left the house that night. The man responsible was on top of me, sweating and hot and thoroughly enjoying my misery. There was nowhere to go; nowhere to turn my head. I buried my face into Pierre’s shoulder and cried quietly, inwardly accepting my gruesome twist of fate.

Of course, he wanted to do whatever I abhorred. Pierre tenderly rubbed the sensitive spot again and my breath caught in my throat. I squirmed underneath him and ferociously resisted the pulsating desire but it grabbed my anyhow. A small and restrained whine slipped through my lips and I gripped Pierre’s straining shoulders tightly as the pleasure peaked, ushering in innumerable contractions that pulled and tugged him. It was all I could feel.

He sealed his lips over mine when my tiny noises escalated to louder moans and pumped a few more times until he finished as well. I’d become so sensitive that I could feel him come with a momentary swell followed by lazier thrusts that emptied him inside me.

Pierre didn’t withdraw immediately. He remained on top of me for what felt like an eternity, regaining his breath and exhaling warm air across my collar bone. I stared blankly at the canopy of trees overhead and tried to make sense of what had happened. I’d lost my virginity to the man who killed my father and from what I could tell, he hadn’t worn a condom.

That raised a frightening possibility.

He stood after a while, tilting his head curiously at me shuddering miserably on the ground. I’d had an orgasm but my insides still hurt like hell and it was way too goddamn cold. The pleasure was receding and leaving behind a yawning abyss much like Pierre’s own self-loathing. I was despicable.

“You touched me,” he murmured.

I immediately bounced back. “Fuck you! You just raped me in the middle of some forest!”

“Oh, that’s such a dramatic term. You were perfectly willing until you discovered my dirty little secrets.” A ghoulish smile spread across his mouth. “Besides, you had a very intense orgasm.”

“So?! I can’t control what my body decides to do!”

Pierre recovered the knife, still smiling at me. “I know. Isn’t it wonderful?”

He picked me up off the ground and carried me back to the house, whistling amongst the dark trees. I tiredly leaned my head on his shoulder and draped my arms around his neck. He didn’t even flinch.


End file.
